The rooftop open-air bar at the top of the hotel.
Today, it was open exclusively for Obadiah and his invited guests.
When Leon and Tony arrived, Obadiah had already been waiting for a long time.
Even though they were excessively late, Obadiah seemed to have expected it, having ordered cold dishes and desserts that Tony and Leon liked.
The candlelight flickering on the table in the breeze cast shifting shadows on Obadiah’s smirking, bald face.
“Hey, Tony, Leon, my boys!
You certainly kept an old man waiting.”
Seeing Tony and Leon arrive, Obadiah greeted them warmly like family.
“Can’t help it.
Who told us to be so durable?” Leon joked with a smile.
Tony picked up the conversational thread.
“Obie, you really should have called a few young models to wait with you.”
“Oh, please.
With my old arms and legs, spare me, kid.
I’d like to live a few more years.” After giving Leon a warm hug, Obadiah patted Tony on the shoulder.
“True enough.”
“If one can live, who wouldn’t want a few more years?” Leon said with open arms.
“Sit, sit!
I ordered all your favorites.”
Obadiah entertained them enthusiastically.
“Thank God for sending you back to my side.
Ever since Howard and Maria passed away in that accident, you two are all I have left.”
“Haha, we really should thank God.”
“Where’s Pepper?
Why isn’t she with you?”
“Something came up.
You know her, always busy.”
“That’s fine.
What matters most is that you brothers came.”
The three sat around the white circular table lit by candlelight, just like a normal family gathering.
*Nom~*
Leon impatiently picked up a steak knife, cut a small piece of cold roasted steak, and popped it into his mouth with a silver fork.
But after chewing twice, he suddenly froze.
“What’s wrong?”
“Not to your taste?”
Obadiah, who had been watching the brothers eat, noticed Leon’s odd behavior immediately and asked with “concern.”
“No.”
“It’s so delicious, it has a serious kick!”
After a brief reply, Leon acted as if he were starving, sweeping all the food on the table into his stomach like a whirlwind.
He didn’t even spare Tony’s portion.
This scene completely stunned Tony and Obadiah, who hadn’t even touched their food yet.
*Burp~*
“!!!”
After letting out a satisfied burp, Leon’s eyes suddenly widened.
He clutched his neck with both hands, foaming at the mouth as if poisoned.
Then his eyes rolled back, his head slumped onto the round table, and he went completely still.
“Leon?
Leon!”
“Obie, this food…
urgh…
is…
poi…soned…”
From poison onset to “death,” it took a mere 2.5 seconds.
Tony didn’t react in time.
By the time he realized the food was poisoned, Leon seemed beyond saving.
He was about to turn and confront Obadiah. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
*Hum—*
Obadiah pressed a small device in his hand, looking much like a key fob, and a specific frequency of infrasound flooded the air.
Blue veins immediately bulged on Tony’s neck, paralyzing him in an instant and stripping him of all ability to resist.
“What a greedy kid.”
“You could have gone just as peacefully, Tony.”
“Hmm?”
Obadiah pushed Leon’s “corpse,” intending to sit in his spot to face Tony, but found he couldn’t move him.
It was like pushing a human-shaped block of iron—impossibly heavy.
He had to give up.
Instead, he sat opposite Leon and Tony, launching into classic villain monologuing.
“Remember this, Tony?” Obadiah removed the noise-canceling Bluetooth earpiece from his ear and shook the small device in his hand at Tony.
“This is the portable infrasonic weapon you developed.
Unfortunately, due to its indiscriminate acoustic propagation, the government didn’t approve it for production.
But it’s pretty practical, isn’t it?”
“Such a shame, Tony.”
“Why did you and Leon have to come back?”
“If you had just died back there, it would have been better for all of us.
Now we have to do this the hard way.”
“The press downstairs certainly won’t guess why I called them here today.”
“After all, who would expect the Stark brothers, having just escaped death, to be targeted and killed by assassins under such a spotlight today?”
“And I, Obadiah Stane, will take complete control of Stark Industries!”
“Tony, your father and I created Stark Industries!
I dedicated my entire life to this company, and in the end, what I got wasn’t even as much as this useless playboy standing next to you!”
*Thud!*
“Hiss—Fuck!”
“Is his head made of iron?!”
In his excitement, Obadiah punched Leon’s skull hard in anger.
The result?
Leon’s head was totally fine, but Obadiah’s metacarpals snapped with a sharp *crack*, fractured on the spot.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,”
“But you two brothers existing really makes things difficult for me!”
With that, Obadiah used his injured right hand to awkwardly put a white glove on his left hand, pulled a pistol from his coat, flipped off the safety, and pointed it at Tony’s head.
However.
Right at that moment!
Leon, who had “died of poisoning,” suddenly returned to life, flipping the table over!
“Difficult?”
“Then don’t do it at all!”
*Bang!*
Obadiah’s gun fired.
But that bullet was caught out of the air by Leon and crushed instantly!
“You!
How…” Obadiah stammered.
Leon kindly answered for him: “How am I not dead from poison?”
“Take a wild guess.”
“Guess my ass!”
*Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!* Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
Completely breaking down, Obadiah emptied the magazine directly at Tony and Leon.
Leon stepped in front of the paralyzed Tony.
The bullets landed full on his body, feeling no different from an itch, leaving eight holes in Leon’s clothes.
“How can this be?!”
“Are you human or a ghost?!”
Facing Leon, who rose from the dead and was impervious to bullets, Obadiah fell on his ass in terror.
The empty pistol slipped from his hand and rolled to Leon’s feet.
Leon bent down to pick it up.
Under Obadiah’s disbelieving stare, he kneaded the pistol like dough into a lump, then clapped his hands together, flattening it into an iron pancake.
“Stane, you know nothing about true power.”
*Thud!*
The iron pancake hit the floor.
Falling along with it was Obadiah’s last sliver of hope.
Now.
He finally understood why Leon wasn’t killed in the car crash, and how Tony escaped the Ten Rings.
So…
He was the one kept in the dark all along.
He didn’t even know his own business partner had already created the “ultimate weapon.”
“Howard, you bastard!
Was this part of your grand plan too?!” Obadiah raged helplessly.
Leon didn’t quite understand why he was so angry or why his dead dad was brought into this.
If Leon knew that Obadiah had imagined his “Steel Body” as one of Howard’s secret research projects, he’d probably laugh himself to death.
“Any last words?”
Leon stepped closer to Obadiah, step by step.
“…”
Obadiah said nothing, crawling backward on all fours away from Leon, desperately trying to escape.
Soon, Leon stopped.
Because Obadiah had nowhere left to run.
Behind him were the city lights and a drop of several hundred meters.
Just then, Tony recovered from his paralysis.
Shaking, he walked over to Leon, who supported him.
He then demanded of Obadiah, who was cornered:
“Why?”
Though paralyzed earlier, Tony’s mind had remained clear.
He had heard every word Obadiah said.
“Why?
Heh…”
Obadiah sneered.
“There is no why, Tony!”
“If you stay in this position long enough, you’ll destroy yourself sooner or later too!
I’ll be waiting for you in hell!”
“Alright, alright, your role is over.
Time for the loser to leave.”
*Shhh—BOOM!*
Leon raised a hand, a flash of light in his palm.
The golden blast sent Obadiah flying off the edge.
Thirteen seconds later.
A dull thud echoed up from down below.
From the sound of it, Obadiah had likely turned into a pile of mush.
“Oh, my God!” Tony looked at Leon, somewhat speechless.
“Why’d you move so fast?
I still had plenty of questions.”
“Blame me?” Leon shrugged casually.
By the time Pepper downloaded and printed the evidence from Obadiah’s office computer—showing his collusion with the Ten Rings and assassins to murder Tony and Leon—Obadiah’s coffin lid had already been nailed shut by Leon with top efficiency.
Safe to say, plans never keep up with changes.