Tony, clad only in a tank top that showed the glowing proof of his survival, barely glanced at the boy. He was completely in the zone, his mind running faster than the plasma cutter. He adjusted the main camera array, which was set to record the test in ultra-high speed, and walked over to the test panel.
"Stabilization baseline set at half a meter behind the center of gravity, compensating for leg weight," Tony mumbled to himself, holding the wireless activation device in both hands. He took a single, exaggerated breath, the showman in him never quite disappearing.
"Little Dumb, be smart. Be ready with the extinguisher arm. We don't want a Malibu wildfire this early in the morning," he addressed the nearest robotic arm, which immediately swiveled its extinguisher nozzle towards his feet.
"Alright, engaging manual vertical control," Tony said, slightly sticking his derrière out to shift his body weight forward, anticipating the thrust. "Let's see how we handle 10% axial load. Get ready for ignition, three..."
"Wait a second, Mr. Stark," Leo's voice cut through the countdown, calm and clear. "Ten percent is an aggressive leap. I think your system is underestimating the thermal yield and the resulting center of gravity shift. How about we begin at a cautious 1%?"
Tony, who was already committed and instinctively hated being told what to do, especially by an eleven-year-old, rolled his eyes dramatically. "Please, kid. I designed the nozzle, the fuel, and the delivery system. I've done the math."
He ignored Leo's advice entirely and pressed the main activation button in his hand.
"Three, two, one—Ignition!"
A tremendous, violent surge of plasma thrust erupted from the soles of the metallic boots. It wasn't the controlled lift he expected; it was a brutal, instantaneous push. His already shaky center of gravity shifted violently backward, and the overwhelming thrust—far exceeding the projected force—slammed Tony, the testing platform, and the leg components against the reinforced glass wall behind him at an astonishing, sickening speed.
The impact was loud, sharp, and potentially catastrophic.
Ten meters away, Leo stood perfectly still. He didn't rush, he didn't even flinch. He simply stretched out his right hand, palm facing the chaos.
The pair of boots, still spitting fiery plumes of plasma against the glass, instantly froze mid-thrust. The enormous, crushing momentum that should have turned Tony's spine into powder simply ceased to exist. It was as if the laws of physics themselves had been momentarily suspended just for him.
Tony, pinned against the glass, only realized he was about to die at the moment the impact stopped. He frantically released the launch button.
With a gentle, almost imperceptible flick of Leo's fingers, the complex metallic components on Tony's feet—and the metallic control rings still clutched in his hands—began to move. Leo used the internal structure of the suit parts as leverage, steadily and gently guiding the inertia-shattered inventor back from the wall, seamlessly depositing him back onto the safety of the black test panel.
Tony stood there, momentarily stunned, his breathing shallow. The sudden, violent chaos, followed by the complete, silent suspension of force, had left him disoriented. He looked from the shattered remains of the testing camera to the boy, completely unharmed, casually lowering his hand.
The silence in the lab was thick, broken only by the cooling hiss of the thruster nozzles.
"Mr. Stark, I believe that warrants a break," Leo said, his voice completely level. "It's 6:30 in the morning. Perhaps some sleep is in order."
Tony ripped the boots off his legs and stomped toward Leo, ignoring the warning from Jarvis about the thermal output. "What did you do? How did you stop that momentum? That was six tons of force, minimum! You—you stopped gravity!"
"Just some minor, insignificant abilities, Mr. Stark," Leo dismissed with a wave of his hand. "But the real question is, why did you ignore my input? You haven't slept all night, but you've clearly figured out the immediate necessity for flight stabilizers to correct your erratic center of gravity, haven't you?"
Tony paced away, rubbing the back of his neck where he should have had a severe concussion. He collapsed into his desk chair, his fingers already flying across the keyboard, calling up the data logs.
"The thermal output was indeed an order of magnitude higher than expected. The impact validates your warning. But that means the flight aid concept is sound. I can attach a jet propulsion device directly to my hands to adjust pitch and yaw. Your suggestion is excellent—not resting, the stabilizer!"
Suddenly energized, the near-death experience already forgotten, Tony was buzzing. "It's only been thirty-six hours of continuous work. Right now, I'm at my most productive! I believe in the power of this stabilizing device, even if it's just installed in the palm of my hand to correct the primary thrust!"
Tony was sketching and typing furiously, new blueprints appearing instantly on the screen—the iconic circular emitters on the palms of the Mark II.
Leo leaned over the desk, his eyes blurring as he mentally absorbed the complex equations scrolling across the display. "Mr. Stark, there's no need to rush to a second near-death experience. Sleep and food are also vital components of genius!"
Tony didn't stop, lost in the matrix of his own design. Leo shrugged. He knew Tony Stark would never be forced to rest. He quietly turned and left the basement, closing the door softly behind him.
Tony, however, paid no attention to the departure, his entire world narrowing to the geometry of the flight aid and the structural framework of the Mark II.
Not long after, Tony, still intensely engaged in his design, was distracted by a completely alien sensation: the smell of actual, freshly cooked food.
A steaming bowl of noodles, perfectly seasoned and topped with sliced steak, appeared next to his keyboard. At the same moment, Leo, perched on a stool, was slurping down his own oversized bowl with gusto.
"If you're determined to stay awake and run on caffeine and sheer ego, fine. You're the boss. But you still need fuel," Leo said, his face close to Tony's.
"Mr. Stark, this design for the hand-stabilizer looks promising. How long until we can run the first prototype?" Leo asked, glancing at the blueprints.
Tony looked at the boy, then at the professional-grade bowl of food. "Did you make this?"
"Of course. Try it! It's fantastic. I've been self-sufficient in the kitchen since I was six," Leo replied proudly.
"Your adoptive parents aren't feeding you enough," Tony muttered, but his empty stomach overruled his cynicism. He grabbed a fork and started eating the noodles with surprising speed.
"No, I eat plenty. I just need a lot of fuel," Leo explained, his eyes fixed on the jet propulsion concept on the screen.
The flight system—the very concept of vertical takeoff and maneuverability—was the heart of the Mark II. It was the purpose, the obsession, the singular reason Tony was still awake.
"Mr. Stark, I'm truly excited to witness the Mark II become a reality," Leo said, a raw, expectant smile lighting up his face. "It's going to change everything."
Tony looked at the oddly enthusiastic, almost fanatical boy. He pushed his empty bowl aside, a rare, genuine smile touching his lips as the warmth of the food settled in his gut.
They instantly returned to work. Tony seemed to have tacitly accepted Leo's presence, allowing him to stand nearby, absorbing data without being chased away. The lab atmosphere shifted from solitary obsession to shared, intense collaboration.
Three hours later, all the necessary parts for the repulsor arm had been designed, finalized, and projected onto the 3D workbench, creating a wireframe model that Tony could manipulate with his hands.
Tony extended his right arm into the projection, making minute, final adjustments based on his natural hand movements and joint tolerances.
Watching this smooth, almost sensual process of creation, Leo's heart pounded. This was the moment. The legendary first test.
Lost in the humming intensity of the basement, neither noticed the elevator ascending.
Leo was the first to sense the change in atmosphere. He glanced toward the entrance just as the glass doors slid open and Pepper Potts walked in, holding a square box wrapped in brown paper and a cup of coffee.
"Tony! I've been calling your internal comms—didn't you hear the walkie-talkie?" Pepper asked, her eyes going wide as she spotted Tony fitting a complex, silvery device onto his arm.
"Um, everything is… what did you say?" Tony replied absently, completely focused on clicking the final clasp of the arm apparatus. He suddenly registered her question. "Oh, right. Who was calling?"
"Obadiah is waiting for you upstairs, in the main hall," Pepper announced, placing the coffee and the mysterious box down.
"Okay, got it, I'll be up in a second!" Tony continued to secure the new flight stabilizer to his forearm, eager to test the power output.
Pepper turned her attention to Leo. "Hey, kid, I was wondering where you'd run off to. What exactly are you doing in the secret studio?"
"I'm here to protect Mr. Stark," Leo stated confidently.
"Really? How is he protected?" Pepper stood beside Leo, finally getting a clear look at the device on Tony's arm. It was a sleek, silver auxiliary unit with a glowing circular outlet in the palm.
"Didn't you tell the world you weren't going to make any more weapons?" Pepper challenged, her tone worried.
"It's a propulsion stabilizer, Pepper. It causes zero damage. It won't hurt a thing," Tony insisted, completely missing the subtext of danger. He slammed the main power conduit button on the workbench, which was set to feed raw energy from the Arc Reactor to the palm emitter.
The light in his palm instantly intensified, growing from a soft glow to a brilliant, blinding white-blue star. Before Tony could fully react, the energy output spiked far past the stabilizer's calibration. A massive, focused energy shockwave—the iconic repulsor blast—shot out in a linear line. The raw, enormous recoil—the uncompensated Newtonian force—slammed Tony backward instantly.
Pepper shrieked, covering her ears, blinded by the sudden, roaring light and noise. Tony, wearing no protective gear, was catapulted several meters back, heading straight for a sharp, unforgiving corner of a heavy steel workbench.
In the fraction of a second before impact, Leo moved. Not physically, but mentally.
A sudden, invisible, binding force seized Tony's hurtling body, arresting his motion inches from the collision. The energy shockwave had dissipated, but the force of the momentum was still dangerous. Leo's right arm was rigidly extended toward Tony, his golden eyes intensely focused on the inventor's flailing form.
With a gentle, almost lazy mental push, Leo deposited the shaken, winded Tony on the floor with barely a thud.
"That's exactly what I mean," Leo said, casually lowering his arm and shrugging at Pepper, who was staring in wide-eyed horror. "The center of gravity is all wrong for that kind of output. And you really need to install some blast dampeners, Mr. Stark."