Leo let out a low whistle as he entered the mansion. "Woah, Mr. Stark. This sure is nice."
"Drop the formality, kid. Call me Tony and use all the teen speak you want," Tony laughed at the obviously forced attempt at formality.
Leo smiled and did use all the 'teen speak' he wanted, "Holy crap, Tony. This is frickin awesome!"
"Wait till you see the lab."
Leo smiled even bigger, he was getting to see his mortal hero's lab!
They entered the large lab and Leo had to suppress a squeal. This is was awesome, it was almost as big as Bunker 9, and although lacking many things that the bunker had, had way more mortal technology. Enough to send man to Mars and back, or at least that's how it looked.
Tony laughed at his rather fish like expression. "Speechless? Most people are."
"This," Leo paused to find the right words. "This is awesome! It's absolutely unbelievable!"
"You wanna see the iron man suits?" Offered Tony.
Leo nodded excitedly, "Suits? There's more than one?"
Tony walked over to the display case and punched in a code. The metal retracted to reveal the many suits.
"Woah! And they're all powered by the arc reactor implanted in your chest?"
Tony nodded, he was eager to teach this kid a lot about engineering.
"How'd you build it in the cave? Where would you get the right gases. I mean, noble gasses and halogens can't be easy to come by in nowhere-stan. Also, how did you get the poly resin for the casing, or did you use a substitute? Did you update it to be more shock proof when you got back? What were they using to power the electromagnet before you built the reactor. How did you propel the Mark 1? It would have taken roughly at least 600,000 joules, not accounting for wind resitance. Did you use the rockets? How'd you prevent the heat from melting the suit?"
Maybe he would have less to teach than he thought.
After all of Leo's questions were answered, Tony showed him his work station, where he'd built the first repulsor beam.
After Tony explained the basics of the technology, he gave Leo free reign of the materials and went to work on the Mark 35.
"Hey, Tony," called Leo 45 minutes laterwhen he was finished. "I'm finished."
"What did you build?" Wondered Tony. He was expecting something simple, like a bunch of lights in a pattern, maybe a few sounds out of the little speakers he had lying around.
He was not, however, expecting a face full of confetti.
Leo laughed at Tony's hilarious expression. He pulled the now empty cartridge from his wrist plate and reattached another.
His invention was reminiscent of the repulsor, but didn't cover his fingers or top of his arm. It simply consisted of a plate on his wrist to load the confetti capsules, and a plate on his palm to launch the confetti, held on by simple plastic straps.
"So you built a-" Tony was cut off by another burst of colored paper in his face.
"Sorry, but that was too priceless," laughed Leo.
Tony coughed up the confetti that made it into his mouth while he was talking. "A confetti launcher. Nice."
"Thanks," Leo began unstrapping the device. "I got the plate idea and joint design from your suits."
"But confetti? Pepper's gonna love that," chuckled Tony.