High above the Atlantic, tucked within the churning white depths of a cumulus cloud bank, Leander Hayes drifted. The moisture was heavy here, a thick grey mist that would have soaked a normal person to the bone in seconds, but Leander didn't mind. He had fashioned a thin, stable platform out of several metal spikes he'd retrieved from the desert ruins. It was less of a vehicle and more of a floating lounge chair, suspended thousands of feet in the air by his own magnetic field.
A faint golden shroud enveloped him, a warm kinetic barrier that kept the damp chill at bay. He sat cross-legged, his eyes closed, letting the currents of the high-altitude winds carry him where they pleased.
In his palm, a small chunk of high-grade alloy hovered. Under the influence of his mental energy, the metal began to soften and reshape, flowing like mercury.
'It's been a while since I've just... made something,' Leander thought. As his mental energy continued to refine itself, his fine motor control over the molecular structure of metal was becoming terrifyingly precise. 'I can grind steel into a powder fine enough to be inhaled, yet I still couldn't pierce Blonsky's skin with raw force alone. The smaller the metal, the harder it is to maintain its structural integrity under pressure. A needle-fine point just doesn't have the mass of a spear.'
His thoughts drifted to his latest evolution. 'The wings... they're different now.'
With a slight shrug of his shoulders, the Nirvana Golden Wings unfurled. They curved around his body, their span filling the small pocket of air he'd carved out within the cloud. The purple-gold edges shimmered with a brilliance that seemed to consume the surrounding light. Even the slightest twitch of his shoulder muscles left behind shimmering trails of phantom light that hung in the air like dying embers.
Looking closely at the crystalline structure of the wing feathers, Leander noticed something new. About a third of the diamond-shaped "feather" phantoms at the outer edge were now filled with a deep, black-purple metal—a material that felt denser and more "real" than the rest of the light-based wings. It was a partial solidification, an evolution toward a more permanent physical form.
He gave the wings a gentle flap. The turbulence created wasn't just wind; it felt like a ripple in the fabric of space itself. The trails of light stirred by the movement were so intense that Leander, staring at them, felt a sudden, sharp wave of vertigo.
He quickly retracted the wings, the golden light receding back into his spine. He wasn't entirely sure what the final stage of this evolution would look like, but the raw power humming in his marrow told him it would be worth the wait.
Forgetting the world below, Leander closed his eyes and let the clouds guide his path, unaware that his "drifting" had carried him far beyond the American coastline.
Malibu Coastal Villa
The first light of dawn was beginning to bleed over the Pacific horizon. Inside the subterranean workshop, the air was thick with the smell of ozone, solder, and burnt coffee. Tony Stark took a long, shaky sip from a mug, his eyes bloodshot but sparkling with the manic energy of a breakthrough.
He stepped back from a holographic projection of the Mark VII. A triumphant smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"I finally got it," Tony whispered to the empty room. "Laser-guided laser-tracking for the suit pods. Integrated body assembly without the need for a stationary gantry. I can suit up while jumping off a skyscraper."
Feeling the adrenaline start to dip, Tony kicked off from his workbench, his rolling chair gliding across the smooth floor toward the bar area. He poured a stiff drink, dropped in two ice cubes, and leaned against the counter, letting the cold glass soothe his overworked hands.
"Jarvis, give me a status update on the kid. Did he make it back to Queens, or did he stop for shawarma in Vegas?"
"Sir, Mr. Hayes is currently over Germany. Based on tracking data from the tactical glasses, he has been drifting through the upper atmosphere at a leisurely pace since yesterday afternoon."
Tony nearly spit out his drink. "Germany? What, did he take a wrong turn at Albuquerque? Show me his feed."
The monitor on the wall flickered to life, showing the view from Leander's glasses. It was a complete white-out—nothing but the swirling grey-white mist of the interior of a cloud.
"He's napping in the stratosphere," Tony muttered, half-impressed and half-annoyed. "Call him."
High above the Bavarian Alps, Leander felt his frames vibrate. He opened his eyes, startled to see a miniature holographic avatar of Tony Stark blinking in the corner of his HUD.
"Incoming call from Mr. Stark. Connection established," Jarvis announced.
"Hey, Mr. Stark," Leander said, rubbing his eyes. "Early start for you, isn't it?"
"Early start? Leander, it's tomorrow. And more importantly, why are you in Germany? Did you decide to go on a bratwurst run without telling me?"
"Germany?" Leander glanced at the GPS coordinates flashing in his lens. He scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish. "Oh. Right. I was just... meditating. Training. I must have drifted off with the jet stream. I'll start heading back now."
Tony took a slow sip of his drink, his eyes narrowing. "Forget the geography lesson. Did Fury reach out? My sensors picked up a massive seismic event in the Javier Desert. Was it a clean sweep?"
Leander reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, metallic model he had been working on—a perfect, palm-sized replica of the Abomination in his "Red State." He looked at it for a second before tucking it away as a souvenir.
"It went alright," Leander said casually. "The Abomination was a lot more durable than the data suggested, and he had a few tricks up his sleeve. But it's settled. Permanently."
"Good. Don't leave any loose ends," Tony said, his voice softening slightly. "I'm heading to the office to meet Pepper. We're officially breaking ground on the Stark Tower project in Manhattan. It's going to be the first clean-energy skyscraper in the world. I might even save a floor for you if you promise not to bring any more monsters home."
"Sounds like a plan, Mr. Stark. See ya."
Leander ended the call and stood up from his steel platform. With a sharp exhale, he tapped his feet, hovering in the air. The steel plates beneath him dissolved, reverting into sleek, needle-thin spikes that tucked themselves into a magnetic holster at his hip.
A golden light ignited around him as he broke through the cloud ceiling, banking hard toward the West. He became a golden streak of light, racing the sun back to New York.
Back in Malibu, Tony set his drink down. The playfulness was gone.
"Jarvis, play back the recording from Leander's tactical glasses. Full sensor overlay. Start from the moment he arrived at the Javier Base."
"Yes, sir. Initiating playback."
A large-scale projection filled the workshop. Tony watched as Leander hovered over the desert, the built-in LIDAR of the glasses piercing the base's outer hull. The image of the Abomination appeared—a hulking, yellow nightmare.
"Pause," Tony commanded. He stared at the screen. "Jarvis, pull up the footage from the Harlem incident. Side-by-side comparison."
The two images hovered in the air. In the forty minutes between the start of the mission and the encounter, the Abomination had changed. He was denser, his bone spurs were longer, and his skin looked like hammered brass.
"What did they do to him?" Tony whispered. "He's evolving in real-time. Continue playback."
The video resumed. Tony watched Leander catch the bone spur with one hand—a feat of reaction time that made Tony's own HUD look slow. He watched the kid toss the Bone Spike Man into the stratosphere with the indifference of a man throwing out the trash.
But then, the real shock hit.
On the screen, Leander's hand reached into the frame. He didn't punch. He didn't blast. He simply pulled.
Hundreds of massive steel tendons—the primary structural supports for a multi-billion dollar military fortress—were ripped out of the ground simultaneously. The sound of the collapse through the audio pickup was bone-chilling. Tony watched as the entire base, a structure designed to survive a nuclear near-miss, folded in on itself like a cardboard box.
The shock of it made Tony drop back onto his sofa, his glass nearly slipping from his fingers.
"Jarvis... replay that. High-speed analysis of the structural failure."
The footage looped. Tony saw the moment the rebar was snatched out. It wasn't a gradual collapse; it was an instantaneous, total erasure of structural integrity.
"This kind of localized destruction..." Tony's voice was barely a whisper. "I'm afraid even the Jericho missile couldn't achieve that level of precision. He didn't just destroy the building; he removed its ability to exist."
Tony sat in the silence of his workshop, the blue light of the hologram reflecting in his eyes. He had known Leander was powerful, but this was different. This was a force of nature wrapped in the skin of a teenager.