**BOOM—CRASH!**
A deafening boom, accompanied by the piercing shriek of scraping metal, as a red-and-gold streak of light smashed through the garage ceiling in a spectacularly clumsy fashion. It slammed heavily onto the open floor in the center, shattering the expensive Italian polished tiles into a spiderweb of cracks.
Dust filled the air.
Paul sat at a nearby workbench, leisurely poking a straw into his ice-cold Coke before taking a huge bite of the double cheeseburger in his hand.
The aroma of juicy patties and savory sauce felt utterly out of place in the garage, which reeked of ozone and scorched metal.
"Seems the 'Red-and-Gold Chili Pepper' Mark III's landing suspension system is still a little... glitchy," Paul commented indistinctly, his mouth full of burger.
The Iron Man armor struggled to its feet, the light of the Arc Reactor in its chest noticeably dimmer. The suit's surface was covered in scratches and scorch marks, big and small. The right shoulder had a gash so deep you could see the framework beneath, with a few wires spitting sparks.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.," Tony's hoarse voice came from under the faceplate, tinged with a suppressed exhaustion, "Play... AC/DC."
The roaring rock music did not begin.
"Sir, I believe what you need right now is rest, not heavy metal music," J.A.R.V.I.S.'s calm voice echoed through the garage.
"Hey, I'm the boss!" Tony knocked on his helmet, annoyed.
"Yes, sir. However, Mr. Paul has modified my protocols. When your vital signs fall below the safety threshold, he possesses superior decision-making authority."
Tony froze.
The faceplate clicked open, revealing his handsome face, smudged with soot and sweat. His gaze swept past his son, finally locking onto the burger in Paul's hand.
"That's mine," Tony's tone left no room for argument.
"Nope, it's mine now." Paul took another big gulp of Coke, letting out a satisfied sigh. "The returning war hero is greeted with endless glory, not the dinner of a fourteen-year-old."
"I just saved a village," Tony said, taking a heavy step forward, each one leaving a shallow indent on the floor.
"And? Should I present you with a Nobel Peace Prize?" Paul raised an eyebrow. "Oh, right. Stark Industries weapons are still killing people around the world. That prize might be a little hard to get."
Tony's face fell. He didn't like this topic.
"Give me the burger," he extended a gauntleted hand, "or I won't hesitate to bundle up all the combat data from this little escapade, including that embarrassing moment you did a 180-degree roll in mid-air and almost ejected yourself, and send it to the military."
Hearing this, Paul, far from being nervous, just laughed.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and played a video.
It showed the embarrassing scene of Tony testing his hand stabilizers, where a repulsor blast went haywire, obliterated an entire liquor cabinet, and sent him flying backward from the recoil. High-definition, slow-motion, and complete with comical sound effects.
"One million dollars for the exclusive rights to this video," Paul said, wagging the phone like a little demon, "or, you can trade me the design schematics for that suit. I think the global media would be very interested in 'Iron Man's Moment of Incontinence'."
Tony's face turned black as soot.
He took a deep breath, deciding not to stoop to the little rascal's level.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.! Get this damn thing off me! It's squeezing the life out of me!"
"Executing, Sir."
Mechanical arms descended from the ceiling and walls and began to dismantle the armor. However, due to combat damage and structural deformation, the process was exceptionally difficult.
"Hiss—Easy! My ribs!"
*CRACK!*
"Oh! Fuck! That's my spine!"
Tony's yelps of pain were endless. Paul, legs crossed and enjoying his meal, provided a gleeful running commentary.
"Look at that, the great Iron Man, trapped in a tin can of his own invention. I told you the joints here should use a mortise and tenon structure, but you insisted on unibody clasps."
"Shut up!"
"See? The deformed shoulder plating is compressing the neural pathways. That's why your right hand wasn't responding earlier. Designed like a flashy sports car. All style, no substance."
"I said, shut up!" Tony gritted his teeth in pain.
The comical, yet strangely warm, scene continued until the glass garage door slid open with a *swish*.
Pepper Potts, dressed in a sharp business suit, strode in on high heels, her face a mixture of anxiety and anger.
"Tony! I need an explanation! Why did the company's security system register an unidentified flying object entering your property? And all this..."
Her voice trailed off.
She saw the battered Iron Man suit suspended mid-air, the shocking bullet holes in the wall, and a pale-faced Tony being painstakingly extracted from the "tin can" by the mechanical arms.
The atmosphere froze.
"You..." Pepper's lips trembled as she pointed to a massive hole in the wall. "What is this? Gunfire?"
"Uh, a bird. A very large bird," Tony dodged, spouting nonsense.
"A bird that can tear through three layers of bulletproof glass and reinforced steel plating?" Pepper's voice rose sharply, her disbelief plain.
"Maybe a pterodactyl. Escaped from Jurassic Park," Tony tried to joke his way out of it.
Paul quietly finished the last bite of his burger off to the side. He noticed that while Tony was joking, there was something hidden deep in his eyes, something he had never seen before.
Not exhaustion, not pain, but a kind of... emptiness.
As if something inside him had been completely hollowed out in the few hours he'd been gone.
Just as Pepper was about to press him further, the tablet Paul had set on the table lit up, displaying an emergency news alert.
Paul glanced at it instinctively.
[BREAKING NEWS: A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet went missing near the Gulmira region of Afghanistan an hour ago. The aircraft is presumed to have crashed, the pilot's status is unknown. The Department of Defense has launched an investigation...]
Gulmira...
Paul's pupils contracted sharply.
Isn't that the name of the village Tony just went to?
An idea flashed through his mind, one so absurd it made him want to laugh at himself.
"Hey, Dad," Paul set down his Coke. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut cleanly through Pepper's questioning. "That 'big bird' you mentioned... the one you were playing hide-and-seek with. What did it look like?"
Tony, just freed from the armor, was stretching his sore shoulders. He froze at the question.
He didn't turn around, simply answered with his back to Paul, his tone casual. "Oh, you know. Gray, flew really fast, pointy wings, and it... *pew-pew-pew*... shot little things at me. But its piloting skills were terrible. I lost it."
Gray... flew really fast... pointy wings...
Paul's breath caught.
He slowly lifted his head, his gaze traveling past Pepper, who was still arguing with Tony, to fixate on his father's back.
On the news feed, a stock image of an F-22 fighter jet flashed across the screen.
Those smooth lines, the signature gray paint, those sharp wings...
...it was a perfect match for the "big bird" Tony had described.
So, the casual "game of hide-and-seek" his dad had mentioned... was actually a life-or-death dogfight in the sky against one of the planet's most advanced fighter jets?
And even...
Paul looked at the words "presumed to have crashed" in the headline, and a chill shot up his spine.
In the garage, Pepper's questions, Tony's evasions, and J.A.R.V.I.S.'s calm system alerts all blended together.
But in Paul's world, there was only the sight of Tony's nonchalant back and the billowing smoke from the crash site on the news.
He finally understood where the bottomless emptiness in his father's eyes came from.