Leander shot three thousand meters into the sky, the air thinning and the temperature dropping, but he barely felt the chill. His new vibranium-weave clothes were doing an incredible job of regulating his body temperature. He paused, hovering above the clouds, and looked around, only to realize a very fundamental problem.
Without the GPS on his phone, he was completely lost.
"I really should have asked Shuri for a physical map," Leander muttered, rubbing his temples. The high-tech Kimoyo Beads were great, but he didn't want to ping the Wakandan satellite network just to find a highway. He spread his wings, turning into a blur of golden light as he banked in a direction that felt vaguely like "North."
Ten minutes later, Leander was walking out of a dusty roadside convenience store somewhere on the African coast, holding a cheap, crinkled world map.
He hovered a few inches off the ground in a nearby alley, gesticulating in the air as he cross-referenced the map with the terrain below. "Okay, Wakanda is roughly here... I'm currently standing in... Ethiopia? Maybe? If I just keep a straight line across the ocean, I'll hit India, cross Asia, and eventually find the Pacific. My internal compass isn't broken yet."
He let the map flutter to the ground. By the time it hit the dirt, Leander was already a mile out over the Arabian Sea.
He pushed his speed, testing the limits of his Mach 10 capability. The world became a smeared painting of blue and white. He crossed the Arabian Sea in twenty minutes, his golden eyes scanning the horizon. He was just passing over the Indian subcontinent, nearing the Bay of Bengal, when a specific flicker of energy caught his attention.
With his Spirit at 25 points and his Golden Eyes at 100%, the world wasn't just physical to him anymore. He saw heat signatures, electromagnetic fields, and—most importantly—the "soul" of things. Down in a small, crowded town in India, he saw a light. It wasn't just a bright light; it was a thrumming, radioactive sun hidden inside a human shell.
Leander decelerated so quickly the air behind him cracked like a whip. He hovered over the town, his gaze locked onto a scruffy, middle-aged man buying vegetables in a crowded marketplace.
"Dr. Bruce Banner," Leander whispered, a grin spreading across his face. "What are the odds?"
He descended into a dark, unpopulated corner of the town. His Asian face didn't draw much attention in this part of the world, but his clothes were a different story. The black-and-silver vibranium T-shirt shimmered with a texture that screamed "billionaire," and even though he was walking barefoot on the dusty street, he looked like he stepped off a high-fashion runway.
As he walked through the throng of people and bicycles, he noticed several pairs of eyes following him. In a town where most people struggled for their next meal, a kid dressed in "future-tech" was a walking gold mine.
Three bearded men began to close in. They didn't look like professional agents; they looked like local thugs who saw an easy mark. They sandwiched Leander, steering him toward a narrow, dark side-street.
Leander didn't even look at them. He just kept walking, his fingers twitching slightly.
From a nearby hardware stall, three long, rusted iron nails unscrewed themselves and rolled across the ground, positioning themselves perfectly beneath the sandals of the three men.
CRUNCH. SQUELCH.
"AHHHH!"
The screams ripped through the humid night air. The three men collapsed, clutching their feet as the nails pierced clean through their soles, emerging from the tops of their feet in a spray of blood.
The commotion did exactly what Leander wanted. The crowd parted, and people rushed over to see the accident. Among them was the scruffy man in the linen shirt. He moved with a practiced, calm urgency—the movements of a doctor.
Bruce Banner had come to India to disappear. He spent his days practicing yoga to suppress "the other guy" and his nights treating the locals in this nameless town. He thought he was safe. He thought the world had forgotten him.
Leander stepped out of the shadow of a pillar and tapped Banner on the shoulder. "Dr. Banner? Small world, isn't it?"
Banner froze. He didn't turn around immediately. His entire body tensed, his heart rate spiking—a dangerous thing for a man in his condition. He slowly turned, looking down at the teenager. "Do I know you?" he asked, his voice low and wary.
"I'm Leander. Most people call me Leo," Leander said with a friendly wave. "And yeah, we've met. Sort of. You were much greener back then."
Banner's eyes darted around the crowded street. He saw the three men on the ground and then looked back at the calm kid. "Can we talk somewhere else? Somewhere... quiet?"
"Lead the way, Doc."
Banner led him to a small, cramped house on the outskirts of town. The interior was sparse but impeccably clean. A few medical books sat on a wooden table next to a bowl of local fruit.
"Is this the new retirement home?" Leander asked, looking around. "A bit of a downgrade from a university lab, but the air is nice."
Banner locked the door and turned to face him, his brow furrowed. "Who are you with? Ross? S.H.I.E.L.D.? How did you find me here? I took three different flights and two buses to get to this town."
"I told you, I'm Leo. And I'm not with anyone," Leander said, taking a seat on a rickety chair that he reinforced with a bit of telekinesis so it wouldn't break. "I was literally flying from Africa to Los Angeles and I saw your 'light' from a few thousand meters up. Thought I'd drop in and see how you were doing."
"Flying?" Banner repeated, his voice skeptical. "And you 'saw' me from the sky? Kid, I've dealt with a lot of lies in the last year, but that's a new one."
"It's the truth, Doctor. We met in Manhattan. You were busy fighting that giant tan muscle-head, Blonsky. I was the one who helped you out with the chains and the helicopter shell. You probably don't remember because you were... well, busy being angry."
Banner's expression shifted. He remembered that night with terrifying clarity. It was the one time the Hulk seemed to have a sense of purpose beyond destruction. He remembered the chains appearing in his hands exactly when he needed them. He remembered how Betty had been shielded by a piece of metal that seemed to move on its own.
"You were the one in the sky," Banner whispered. "The figure in the clouds."
"Guilty as charged," Leander said with a grin. "I was a bit reckless back then, but I couldn't just watch my favorite Avenger get beat up."
"Avenger?" Banner asked, confused by the term. "I'm not a hero, Leo. I'm a ticking time bomb. I came here so I wouldn't hurt anyone else. So I wouldn't hurt Betty."
"You're doing a good job so far," Leander noted, looking at the doctor's calm demeanor. "But you're still hiding. You can't run from yourself forever, even in India."
Banner sat down across from him, his suspicion still simmering just below the surface. "Why are you really here? You didn't just 'drop by' to say hi."
"Honestly? I was just curious," Leander said. He held out his hand. A metal spoon from the table flew into his palm, melting and swirling like liquid mercury. Within seconds, it solidified into a perfect, miniature statue of Bruce Banner—complete with his worried expression and his rumpled linen suit.
Banner took a pair of glasses from his pocket and leaned in, examining the detail. The likeness was haunting.