"It hasn't always been like this," he admitted, settling down on a convenient piece of rubble that had once been part of the gate that had been half destroyed now. "But ever since I aged too much, I've ended up facing this once in a while after every stressful fight."
"Aged too much?" Ryder repeated, his voice filled with puzzlement. "You aren't even thirty, and you're talking about age like you're some sort of old man."
The statement struck both Ryder and Brok as almost comically absurd. Here was Leo, with his boyish face and endless energy, complaining about being old.
"Yeah, what's next? Are you going to complain about your back hurting and start telling us stories about how things were better in the old days?"
But instead of laughing along with their jokes, Leo's expression grew distant and somewhat serious. There was something in his eyes that made both of their laughter slowly die down in awkwardness.
