As a series of muffled explosions rattled the floors below, Tony Stark snapped back to reality.
A dozen missiles screamed past him, close enough to send chills down his spine—even inside the armored shell of the Iron Man suit.
But they didn't detonate. Instead, they burst into thick, viscous clumps of polymer slime, ensnaring nearby enemies in seconds. Tony let out a shallow breath of relief.
Still, the shock lingered.
"Jarvis… just now?!"
The AI, fluent in every inflection of his master's voice and trained on years of behavioral patterns, knew exactly what Tony meant.
Inside the HUD, a targeting reticle snapped onto the object in the boy's hand—the one that looked suspiciously like a pencil case. Instantly, data scrolled beside it.
"Sir," Jarvis replied, calm and precise, "no known weapon matches that profile in my database. However, system analysis identifies it as a miniature handheld missile launcher. Equipped with a smart lock-on function, it fires non-lethal projectiles filled with a high-adhesion polymer—highly effective for immobilizing targets."
He paused fractionally. "However, projectile velocity is low. At medium to high range, the Mark Armor has a 98.4% interception probability. Threat assessment: low."
Tony straightened, the momentary panic already feeling embarrassing. He'd practically frozen like a rookie.
"Then just now—" he started, voice tight.
He wanted to point out that when he'd first stumbled in front of that mother and child, the launcher had been pointed directly at his face. That wasn't "medium range"—that was point-blank.
And the suit's scanners had penetration imaging. It should've flagged the weapon before the kid even opened the case.
So why hadn't Jarvis warned him?
As if reading his thoughts—which, technically, he was—Jarvis cut in smoothly:
"Sir, your manual override to unfold the faceplate interrupted active threat analysis."
Tony froze. Then winced.
"…Right." He rubbed the back of his neck inside the helmet. Of course. His flashy entrance had short-circuited his own safety protocols.
Still, Tony Stark didn't stay humbled for long.
"Minor oversight," he declared. "Jarvis, log a reminder: integrate an external obstacle-clearing subroutine into the armor's self-cleaning system."
"Understood, sir."
Tony turned toward the mother and son, ready to issue a quick warning before jetting off. The battle outside was still raging—he had civilians to evacuate, not teenage gadget enthusiasts to babysit.
But before he could speak—
The boy snapped the pencil case shut and moved.
One second he was there; the next, he was a blur streaking toward the hole blown in the wall.
Fast? Absolutely. But not faster than the suit's optics could track.
Tony pivoted just in time to see the kid skid to a stop beside a soccer ball near the breach. In one fluid motion, he whipped his right leg back like a coiled spring, body arched like a diving eagle—eyes locked on something beyond the ruined wall.
Tony followed his gaze.
And his blood ran cold.
A hundred-meter-long Leviathan-class Chitauri warship drifted through the smoke-choked skyline, its grotesque hull looming over the building like a shadow of death.
Along the way, Chitauri soldiers kept leaping from the Leviathan warship, bounding toward the streets below like grotesque rain.
"What is he going to do?!"
"Beep-beep—WARNING! Critical energy spike detected!"
"Scanning… Unknown power source! Composition includes: memory-polymer synthetic musculature, magnetohydrodynamic damping layers, carbon nanotube reinforcement…"
Data scrolled frantically across Tony Stark's HUD—JARVIS's alerts echoing in his ears—but his focus was locked on the kid.
The boy—Luca—stood poised, one leg raised high, sparks crackling around his right foot. An iridescent shimmer danced over his sneaker like liquid lightning.
Then—he kicked.
In the Mark XLII's slow-motion HUD, the soccer ball warped under the force, compressing the air around it into a white-hot vortex. A deafening crack split the skyline as the ball launched—not like a projectile, but like a meteor ripped from orbit.
The shockwave ripped pavement from the streets and hurled glass from skyscrapers. Trailing a comet's tail of plasma-orange fire, the ball screamed through the atmosphere, shattering windows in its wake with a chain of sonic booms.
BOOM—!
It struck the Leviathan dead center.
The bio-ship shrieked—a wet, metallic howl—as its armored hide detonated outward from the impact. Entire plates of chitin-like plating vaporized. The colossal beast staggered midair, thrown backward like a toy.
"Analyzing residual energy… Unknown external reinforcement matrix. Non-terrestrial locking mechanism. Structural integrity compromised by—"
"Yeah, yeah—save the lecture," Tony muttered, heart hammering. He swallowed hard, staring. "...Ori-she?"
ROOOOAR—!
The Leviathan recovered—fast. Too fast. Still massive, still furious, it corrected its tilt and charged, diving straight for the nearest tower with terrifying speed.
No time to gawk.
Tony blasted forward, repulsors flaring, streaking across the sky like his own brand of shooting star. Luca's insane kick had done the hard part—ripped open the ship's hide like overripe fruit. Now, exposed muscle-fiber conduits pulsed beneath.
"Thanks, kid," Tony muttered. He fired a micro-missile from his wrist.
KRA-KOOM!
The explosion tore through the Leviathan's innards. It convulsed midair, then plummeted—crashing through two buildings before collapsing in a groaning heap of twitching biomass.
Tony hovered above the smoke, armor ticking as it cooled. He whistled low. "Huh. Actually worked."
He hadn't expected a random soccer prodigy to turn the tide on a Chitauri dreadnought. Let alone with a ball.
A beat passed. Then, dryly:
"But seriously… what kind of parents outfit their eight-year-old with orbital-grade kicking tech?"