Chapter 101: Growing Pains (Part 2)

Schiller was standing next to a hospital bed. Lying on the bed was a patient without arms, who was still in a coma. Dr. Connors adjusted an instrument and said, "The serum the military injected into them is not perfect, and it is very likely that it damaged their nervous system."

He sighed and said, "Whether he can wake up is not certain."

"Was he your former comrade-in-arms?"

"No, I haven't seen him on the battlefield, but he is also my comrade-in-arms. We all went to the battlefield holding the same belief."

Stark stood on the other side of the hospital bed in silence. He was sensitive to other people's emotions, but he always felt that Connors was very calm, as calm as the sea before a storm.

Stark thought, if it were him, would he use any means to retaliate against those who brought him this pain and anger?

Stark had never thought that one day he would stand in the opponent's position and think for them.

This perspective brought him a great shock, because he discovered that the so-called bad guys he once thought of, if it were him, couldn't have done better than them.

This was something Stark had never anticipated. He had always felt that he was omnipotent, but now he discovered that his arrogance might be built in a vacuum environment created by others for him.

During this period of time, he personally experienced the difficulty of dealing with everything by himself without Pepper's care and Obadiah's protection.

On one hand, he struggled to learn to take care of himself, and on the other hand, he had to rack his brains to maneuver among various forces. Those treacherous means that he once hated immensely, he had to learn even if he didn't want to, and had to use even if he didn't want to.

Until this moment, Stark discovered that perhaps he had been living in a cradle all along. He had lived for so many years, and perhaps it was only recently that he had just stepped out of the swaddling clothes and was stumbling to face this real world.

Schiller asked, "What do you plan to do? Although Robert is dead, the officers of the Tartus faction have not all disappeared. They have always firmly believed in their theory of super soldiers, and once they find that the data of the Desperate Project has been leaked, they will definitely do everything possible to exterminate them."

"After all, once the data you possess is exposed, it is enough to shake the prestige of the entire military system. Even if they are not officers of the Tartus faction, they will not allow such a thing to happen."

"I have been prepared for a long time." Connors said, "I was prepared to be a mute."

"Did you think I would do something? Avoid the military and try every means to publish this data?" Connors shook his head and said, "I knew long ago that this was useless."

"Those people always have ways to make ordinary people believe what they should believe, and erase everything that ordinary people shouldn't believe. Even if I have a way to make some people believe this is true, people are forgetful."

"Just like what we encountered, when we went to the battlefield, everyone applauded and cheered for us, calling us heroes. But when we returned, the cold eyes and discrimination we suffered wouldn't get any better because of the glory of the past."

"We just disappeared from this society for a very short time, and they forgot us. Forgetting is a terrible thing. It can turn white into black, and it can also erase all the deep sins of the past."

"I will wait. I have waited for a long time, and I am not afraid to wait longer."

"I will wait until they have no way to erase my name from history, and then I will reveal all this."

Connors' tone was very calm, but everyone could feel a kind of power in his tone. That might be the precipitation of anger, and also the condensation of the flames of revenge.

When it was late at night, Schiller was just about to sleep when he received a call from Stark. Stark said, "I want to book two hours of psychological treatment now."

"Do you want me to scold you again?"

"I'm serious, I'll pay the consultation fee."

"You have to pay the consultation fee for the last time too."

Stark was speechless. He stomped his feet and said, "I'm on the roof of your house now. If you don't come up, I'll have Jarvis initiate emergency awakening measures."

After a while, Schiller stood on the edge of the roof, and Stark stood with him wearing his armor. Schiller asked, "Has anyone ever told you that whenever you run out wearing armor in the middle of the night, it's like writing a line of big characters on your face — 'I am a stray dog that nobody wants'?"

"I'll say it again, I'm paying for psychological treatment, not to be scolded."

"Then I'll say it again, others don't get scolded because they don't ask a psychologist to give them two hours of psychological treatment at two in the morning."

"I'll pay you overtime, any amount is fine."

"You seem to only be able to use this armor and the fact that you are rich to cover up the state that you are actually very insecure right now."

Stark was silent.

"Every time you come to see me wearing armor, it's like telling me that your situation is very difficult and you need to pay more."

"No wonder you raise the price every time."

Stark hesitated, but still opened his faceplate. He said, "Do you think... do you think I should do something? I mean... just those things about Connors. I also can't stand the plan the military made. As a righteous hero, shouldn't I teach those inhumane demons a lesson?"

"Just say it if you want to help Connors."

"I don't want to help him. How could I want to help that big lizard who made my building a mess?"

"I just want to uphold justice. I think anyone who sees that plan would want to do that, right?"

"You can admit that Connors' actions have brought you quite a shock. You haven't thought that a person intends to continue waiting in this darkness, continue to wait for the light that doesn't know if it will come."

"You found that his way of upholding justice seems to be different from yours. In this world, it's not called upholding justice only when you put on an iron shell and beat up criminals with great fanfare."

"You actually feel unbearable for this."

"Fine, I admit it..." Stark sighed slightly, closed his eyes, and said, "I dare not think about what kind of belief he held to keep burying his head in developing those serums. When he was alone in the laboratory, wouldn't he feel desperate? Wouldn't he feel helpless?"

"When I faced those pressures, even if I had a genius brain, even if I had the entire Stark Group, and had the most money in the world, I still felt a bit... that was really hard to endure. No one accompanied you, fighting alone, not knowing when it would end."

Stark's Adam's apple moved, and he said, "From the time Connors learned about this plan to the time he developed the lizard serum, it must have taken at least a few years, right? Did he just live like this? Living in this environment all the time without going crazy?"

Stark had experienced this kind of despair. Obadiah was unconscious, Pepper was busy turning the tide, and the days and nights Stark spent alone in the laboratory, loneliness was like a black tide pouring out from the abyss. Stark could only rely on the anesthesia of alcohol to avoid thinking about when his lonely boat would drift to the shore.

But he knew that Dr. Connors had been drifting like this for several years. Compared to Stark who still had some hope, Dr. Connors didn't even have a boat. He drifted in the wind and rain for countless days and nights holding a piece of wood that was about to rot, knowing that this ocean might not have a shore, but still refusing to give up.

Precisely because Stark had experienced it, he knew how hard that loneliness was to endure, and he also realized that no matter how high the wisdom was, it couldn't brew an antidote for this kind of suffering. He also didn't have any sense of superiority to despise those who struggled hard in this kind of suffering.

"The World of Great Luo"

"I think you always claim to be Peter's elder. In terms of age, it is indeed so, but perhaps in some aspects, it is not."

"What does this mean? I am his elder. I was the one who went to his school when they called parents two days ago."

"I mean, perhaps in some aspects, you also need to learn from him."

"Learn from him? That silly kid?" Stark curled his lips and said, "What do I have to learn? Learn from him being trembling after beating up a foul-mouthed bastard? If it were me, Daddy Stark would definitely let that trash know how powerful I am..."

"The reason I mentioned Peter is because there is another person's name you would even less want to hear."

Stark opened his mouth and said, "I'd better go ask Peter. You don't need to give the other suggestion, otherwise I'll deduct the money."

After speaking, he closed the mask of his armor with a 'click' and flew away directly. Schiller shook his head.

He thought, the growth process of these superheroes was like a rich scroll slowly unfolding before his eyes.

When he personally participated in this process, he discovered that these people were indeed superheroes, but they were also ordinary people. Peter was like this, Stark was like this, Spider-Man was like this, and Iron Man was like this.

Their transformation was not something that could be shown in one or two shots or a few lines of dialogue in a comic. Their growing pains were like a mess, impossible to sort out and impossible to finish talking about.

Their emotional ups and downs, emotional changes, every hesitation, every firmness, were full of complex and bizarre thoughts, just like the subtle changes brought to them by the brains of every ordinary person, too many to count.

This also made Schiller understand that the moving stories, heroic sacrifices, and firm beliefs he once saw in movies and comics were not born like this.

These superheroes were like a piece of steel tempered a thousand times. Schiller could see the process of them being forged. The sound and tremor of every strike, every cluster of flames rising due to intense collision, were like fuel filled into the soul to maintain vitality, bringing him more stimulation than a mediocre life could.

Until one day, the hearts of the heroes turned into shining gold, and these tempered processes were written into legendary stories.

If the people who read these stories saw the glorious and great side of the heroes, then Schiller, a reader deeply trapped in the story, was more willing to record the growing pains of these small and trivial heroes.

Record their laughter and scolding, joys and sorrows as ordinary people, until one day, after those sung stories were forgotten, the traces of these heroes who were not heroes still remained in this world.

Remains, greatness is born from the ordinary, and will eventually return to the ordinary, this answer. ===== CHAPTER 102 =====