"Still the same stubborn ass." Leon flicked a clump of grease from Tony's beard. "Your facial hair looks like a raccoon died on your face."
"And you're auditioning for Mad Max cosplay." Tony gestured at Leon's bare torso. The barb carried decades of practiced nonchalance – their sibling ritual of trading insults as love language.
Leon's finger tapped the arc reactor. "Vacuum-proof hearing upgrade. Your bedtime whimpers traveled four light-minutes."
"Bullshit physics." Tony's retort came automatic, but his hands betrayed him – trembling as they traced the reactor's edges. "Even quantum entanglement requires..."
The protest died when Leon's palm phased through his ribcage.
Time dilated.
At attosecond scale, Leon's fingers became surgical lasers. Biofields stabilized arterial walls as he plucked shrapnel like cherry pits from gelatin. Thermal vision cauterized micro-wounds before neurons could register pain.
"Done." Leon dropped nine metal slivers into Tony's palm. "Souvenirs from your midlife crisis."
Tony stared at the blood-flecked fragments. His shirt bore symmetrical slits where Leon's fingers had breached fabric at relativistic speeds. "You... when did you..."
"Three seconds ago." Leon turned toward the blast door. "Now let's discuss your terrible life choices."
The Mark I armor creaked as Tony stumbled after him. "Choices? I was kidnapped by..."
"By discount Hydra cosplayers with AKs?" Leon snorted. The twelve-ton steel door ahead warped like taffy under his gaze. "You built a nuclear reactor in a cave. With scraps."
"Not just scraps!" Tony's wounded pride overrode survival instincts. "There's palladium alloy plating, titanium..."
Leon snapped his fingers.
The door vaporized in a corona of molten metal. Beyond it, twenty terrorists froze mid-reload – their RPGs and M249s dripping like wax sculptures in July heat.
"Scraps." Leon stepped through the glowing archway. His shadow stretched down the corridor, morphing into something with too many teeth. "Stay behind me, old man."