On the far side of the burning deck, James Rhodes was operating with the clinical precision of a man who had spent half his life in a cockpit or on a firing range. He didn't waste a single bullet. Dropping to one knee, he stabilized his aim and fired two high-caliber rounds. The first severed the thick industrial rope on the left side of the President's suspension rig; the second mirrored the shot on the right.
Without the tether, the Iron Patriot armor—still housing the leader of the free world—dropped several feet before Rhodes caught it, guiding the descent so the President wouldn't be jolted. There was a momentary lull in the surrounding chaos, a pocket of silence bought by Leander's earlier intervention.
"Sir, I have to say, that suit actually does wonders for your approval rating," Rhodes quipped, his voice cracking with a bit of dry, soldierly humor as he knelt before the armor.
Inside the helmet, the President let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for hours. Seeing the familiar face of Rhodey was like seeing the sunrise after a polar night. A faint, shaky smile touched his lips. "It's a bit tight in the shoulders, Colonel. I think I prefer the Oval Office."
"I'll take it back then," Rhodes said, his tone turning serious. "I've been itching to get back into my own skin anyway."
The Patriot armor hissed as the pressure seals released, folding open to reveal the President. He looked frail, his suit rumpled and sweat-stained, a stark contrast to the high-tech weaponry that had just been encasing him. Rhodes helped him out with a firm hand and immediately stepped into the suit himself. The moment the faceplate slammed shut, the Iron Patriot's eyes glowed a menacing blue. Rhodes felt the familiar surge of power, the HUD flickering to life, mapping out the remaining threats.
The President, however, wasn't looking at the fire. He was looking up. His eyes followed two figures drifting effortlessly through the smoke-filled sky. One was a girl with blonde hair, looking terrified but safe, and the other was a man who seemed to command the very air around him.
"Rhodey," the President asked, his voice hushed. "Who are those two? The man... I've seen him before."
"That's the Golden Legend, sir," Rhodes replied, his voice echoing through the external speakers. "He's the reason those people on Air Force One are still breathing. I was a few minutes behind him, but he's the one who cleared the sky."
The President narrowed his eyes, watching the way the metal around the Golden Legend seemed to dance to his whim. "Do we have a name? A file? Anything?"
Rhodes hesitated. He knew Leander Hayes—or at least, he knew the man behind the mask—but some secrets were worth more than a promotion. "He keeps the mask on for a reason, Mr. President. Even Stark doesn't have a full read on him. As far as the Pentagon is concerned, he's a ghost."
"A ghost that can catch a falling plane," the President muttered, his brow furrowing as he watched Leander's receding figure. "The reports said he went missing after the battle in New York. If he's back, I want a sit-down. Contact him on my behalf, Colonel. I want to personally thank the man who saved my administration."
"I'll see what I can do, sir," Rhodes said, though he knew Leander wasn't the type to show up for a photo op at the White House. He placed a heavy, armored hand on the President's shoulder. "Tony! The package is secure. I'm moving the President to the extraction point."
"Copy that, Rhodey. Get him out of here," Tony's voice crackled over the comms, tight and strained.
In the sky, the duel was reaching its breaking point. Tony had already burned through three suits. The Mark 38 Centurion he'd been wearing earlier had been shredded, its reinforced plates literally peeled back by Killian's bare hands. Now, Tony was encased in the Mark 24—the 'Tank.'
The Tank was a beast of a suit. It was built for heavy-duty siege work, reinforced with a titanium-vibranium alloy and lined with high-tensile Kevlar. It was bulky, ugly, and built to take a beating that would level a skyscraper. It was the only thing keeping Tony alive as Killian moved with the speed of a predatory cat, his skin glowing a violent, pulsating red.
Killian didn't care about the armor's specs. He lunged, his hands glowing at three thousand degrees, acting like thermal cutters. He slammed a fist into Tony's chest, but the Tank armor held. The Heartbreaker-style chest piece hummed, absorbing the kinetic energy and venting it as a repulsive wave that sent Killian skidding back across the metal gantry.
"You're running out of toys, Tony!" Killian roared, his voice distorted by the heat rising from his throat. "How many more layers of tin can do you have left?"
Tony didn't answer. He couldn't afford to. Every ounce of his concentration was focused on the HUD. Jarvis was struggling to keep up with Killian's erratic, high-speed movements. If not for the Mark 14 hovering nearby and providing suppressive fire with its shoulder cannons, Tony would have been overwhelmed minutes ago.
But the tide was turning. Leander had been busy. Of the hundred or so Extremis soldiers that had started the night, only a dozen were left. The Iron Legion, acting under Jarvis's high-intensity protocols, had finally thinned the herd. Twenty armored suits were now closing in on the final remnants of Killian's army.
Killian saw it too. He looked around the burning ship and realized his grand vision was collapsing into ash. His soldiers were dying, his leverage was gone, and the President had been rescued. The plan had failed. But the spite—the decade-old, festering resentment toward Tony Stark—that was still very much alive.
Leander, hovering a short distance away with Pepper, watched the scene with a cold, detached curiosity. He raised his hands, and the metal walkway beneath Killian's feet turned to liquid. The steel rose up like a grasping hand, wrapping around Killian's waist and pinning him to a support pillar.
Leander stared at the struggling man. Maya was betrayed in her heart and her work, Leander thought, his eyes narrowing. She has a reason to be angry. But you? You're burning down the world because Tony Stark didn't show up to a meeting on a rooftop ten years ago? Your commitment to a grudge is almost impressive, Killian. Too bad it ends here.
Tony landed on a nearby platform, his faceplate sliding up. He looked terrible. His face was a map of cuts, bruises, and dried blood. He looked exhausted, his breathing heavy and ragged.
When he saw Pepper standing there, he froze. His eyes widened, and for a second, the billionaire genius looked like a terrified child. He quickly snapped his faceplate back down, as if ashamed to let her see him so broken.
"Pepper?" he whispered over the external speakers.
Pepper stared at him. She had seen him on the news a thousand times, looking polished and invincible. But this... this was different. The armor was scorched, the ship was a graveyard, and Tony was barely standing. In that moment, the frustration she'd felt over the last few months—the arguments about his obsession with the suits—evaporated.
"Leander, why is she here?" Tony snapped, his voice sharp with protective instinct.
"She needed to see the truth, Tony," Leander said calmly. "Killian didn't just want to kill you. He wanted to use her. If I hadn't taken her, she'd be an Extremis test subject right now, a bomb used to keep you in line. That's what you were afraid of, wasn't it? That's why you didn't go home."
Pepper's hands flew to her mouth. She looked at Killian, who was currently melting through Leander's metal trap, his body a pillar of fierce, orange flame. He looked like a demon stepped out of a myth. She realized that while she had been complaining about Tony's 'hobby,' he had been preparing for a war he knew was coming—a war he didn't feel strong enough to win.
"Sir," Jarvis's voice cut through the tension. "All Extremis ground troops have been neutralized. The area is secure."
Killian erupted from the metal bindings with a scream of pure rage. He didn't care about the Iron Legion. He didn't care about Leander. His eyes were locked on Tony. His clothes had burned away long ago, leaving him a glowing, naked avatar of destruction. He propelled himself forward, his hands sharpening into blades of pure thermal energy.
"STARK!"
The Mark 14 tried to intercept him, but Killian was too fast. He lunged through the air, his hands piercing the Mark 14's chest plate like it was made of warm butter. He tore the suit in half and kept coming.
Tony tried to jump back, but the Tank armor was too slow for a point-blank dodge.
Leander didn't move his body, only his fingers. The two halves of the shattered Mark 14 and a dozen other pieces of scrap metal suddenly accelerated, flying toward Killian from all sides. They didn't just hit him; they wrapped around him, layer after layer of high-grade alloy crushing inward.
Leander clenched his fist.
The sound was sickening—the sound of tons of metal collapsing under immense pressure. Killian, trapped in the center of the sphere, didn't even have time to scream. The internal heat of his body collided with the crushing force of the metal, and for a second, the sphere glowed white-hot before the pressure simply turned everything inside into a pressurized paste.
The glow died down. The threat was gone.
Tony stumbled, his legs giving out. An automated suit flew in to catch him, but Leander was faster, shifting a metal platform beneath Tony to give him a solid place to rest.
Pepper ran to him, falling to her knees and helping him pull the helmet off. She didn't care about the grease or the blood. She just held his face in her hands.
"Tony... oh god, Tony," she sobbed.
Tony looked at her, his eyes fluttering. "I... I think I broke your house, Pep. And the car. And probably the driveway."
Pepper laughed through her tears, her voice trembling. "I think I finally get it now. Why you couldn't stop. Why you were so scared. How can I ever get mad at you for wearing the suit when this is what's waiting outside our door?"
Tony managed a weak, bloody grin. "Oh, don't worry. You'll think of something. You always do."
Pepper looked around at the devastation—the skeletons of the Iron Legion, the burning tanker, the quiet New York night. "We're going to be okay, aren't we?"
"No," Tony said softly, looking at her with an affection that bypassed all his usual snark. "It's going to be impossible. You're dating a guy with a target on his back and a basement full of robots. But... I think I can fix the house. And maybe the guy."
Leander watched them for a moment, feeling a rare flicker of something like emotion. With a wave of his hand, he guided the platform back down to the main deck, leaving the two of them to find their way home in the wreckage.