Chapter 144: R: The Great Bat Incident (End)

"You mean, there's a problem with the reactor in Mr. Stark's chest?" Peter looked at Yin Sen.

"Peter, you're very smart..." Yin Sen put his arm around Peter's shoulder, turned his head to look at him, and said, "Even if you just think about it for a moment, you should realize how dangerous it is to embed an energy source that works on this principle into your body."

Peter said very worriedly, "Then what should we do? We should be able to develop something new to replace that thing, right?"

"Of course, Tony is a genius. If he really wanted to do something, he could certainly succeed. But what if he doesn't want to?"

"How could he not want to? This concerns his own life..." Peter stopped just after saying this. Yin Sen said, "You should have noticed, too. Tony's current mindset is a bit negative. He always thinks about dying like a hero, rather than considering how to live well."

Peter thought of Stark's figure flying toward the Highlands Building without hesitation. No matter how he tried to persuade him, Stark wouldn't stop. Besides heroism, this posture indeed had the flavor of rushing toward death.

Peter sighed, sat down on a chair, put one arm on the table, and said, "I once heard from Dr. Schiller about what Mr. Stark has been through during this time. Honestly, it's really sad."

"What do you think I should do?" Peter spread his hands and said, "I want to help him, but I might not be able to help much in terms of technology."

"Stark doesn't need anyone to help him with technology. I think you can go and persuade him."

Yin Sen leaned against the workbench next to Peter and looked at him, saying, "Haven't you noticed? Stark treats you differently. We are his friends, but there are some things he never listens to friends about, but you might be different."

After Yin Sen left, Peter, alone in the laboratory, was dazed. He began to recall the bits and pieces of his time with Stark.

At the very beginning, at the top of the New York TV Tower, Stark told him about his experiences in Afghanistan.

That day, when they were still very much strangers, Stark told Peter that wanting to be a hero would be painful.

It wasn't until later that Peter realized Stark wasn't someone who would easily cry out in pain.

Peter could imagine that embedding a reactor in his own chest, no matter how much power it had or how powerful an armor it could drive, must not have felt good for the owner of this body.

The lights in the laboratory were dim, with only the light from the instruments crisscrossing on the floor. Spider-Man wasn't incapable of feeling tired. In such an environment, Peter, who had been fighting all day, also felt exhausted and sleepy.

In a trance, he seemed to see Stark sitting on the floor in front of him, his back against the workbench, holding a model of a reactor in his hand.

Peter remembered asking Stark what the model that was always on his desk was. Stark was silent for a long time, but finally only said one name—Howard.

Peter had vaguely heard this name from others. For example, Steve told Peter that Howard was once his old comrade-in-arms; he was also a genius, but also a playboy.

Natasha seemed to have mentioned this name too, but in any case, she never said anything good about him. Nick had also mentioned Stark's father in his words, but didn't offer any evaluation that left a deep impression on Peter.

Just like his own father, Peter thought. What he heard from Uncle Ben and Aunt May was always just a name and some hazy descriptions.

Father, Peter thought, this word was really far away for him.

Peter's sleepiness grew stronger. It seemed like in a dream, he saw Stark put down the model and then close his eyes, as if he had fallen asleep.

In every such late night, in the deserted laboratory of Stark Tower, Iron Man did indeed feel pain.

He always said Howard wouldn't be the person he should think of when in pain, but in every such late night, no one knew who Iron Man was actually thinking of.

In Peter's deeper dream, he dreamed that Stark became his father.

In this dream, there were no advanced facilities of the Stark Group, no luxurious environment, and none of the ease of a wealthy family that Peter couldn't imagine.

His childhood was still trapped in that old house. In his memory, there were still half-new, half-old clothes, toys that couldn't fill a box, and storybooks that had been flipped until they were wrinkled.

But the only difference was that he had a father—a father who would dismantle those toy cars with him and use building block parts to make all kinds of machines.

They used marbles as planets and laid out a map of the solar system on the somewhat old floor. In the narrow room, the sunset light shone on these somewhat crude toys. The tall Stark and the young Peter stared intently at the glass beads on the floor. This pair of father and son seemed to possess the entire universe.

The two's appearances began to change. Peter saw Stark turn into Howard, and he himself turned into a young Stark.

Howard gently flicked the marbles, and countless mysteries of the universe were told from his mouth. The light of those glass beads began to get brighter and brighter, becoming increasingly dazzling.

Peter saw a father and son holding hands, standing above the Earth. All the planets in the solar system were under their control. Even the sun obeyed the father's command and dimmed its light. The planets rotated non-stop, and countless rays of light flickered.

Mars, Venus, Jupiter...

Those profound pieces of knowledge for a child just echoed like that in the silent universe.

Before Peter's consciousness fell into darkness, the last scene he recalled was when Stark handed him the first-generation Spider-Man suit. Stark's faceplate rose, and those brown eyes, under the sunlight, were as rich as honey about to melt.

Peter was certain he saw two completely different emotions in those eyes: the vicissitudes belonging to a father and the innocence belonging to a child.

The night began to grow deeper. Stark lay on the hospital bed. He was indeed very exhausted, but his biological clock from years of staying up late made him unable to sleep now.

Just as he felt a bit uncomfortable and wanted to turn over, he heard the doorknob move gently. He struggled to turn his head and saw the door opened a small crack. The light from outside poured in. Peter squeezed in through the crack and then gently closed the door.

As soon as Peter turned around, he saw Stark's somewhat bright eyes staring at him. He seemed startled, then said somewhat embarrassedly, "Uh... Mr. Stark, are you not asleep yet? I thought..."

"What are you doing here now? Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I... I have a bit of insomnia, just can't sleep. Uh, actually, I already slept, but I suddenly woke up just now..."

"Has anyone ever told you that when you lie, you always speak incoherently?"

Peter said dejectedly, "I knew it. I've never been able to lie since I was a kid."

"So why are you here? If it's any question related to the experiment, we'll talk about it tomorrow morning."

"I was almost asleep." Stark turned over, his back to Peter, indicating he wanted to sleep.

Peter lowered his head. He didn't turn on the light, just walked to the chair next to the hospital bed and sat down. He was silent for a long time, so long that he thought Stark had fallen asleep.

Then, as if possessed, he spoke: "Mr. Stark, can you tell me about your father?"

Stark was silent and didn't answer. Peter felt he was being excessive, but he still said, "I don't mean anything else, it's just... you know, I've never seen my father. When others hear about my background, they won't mention their parents to me anymore, even Gwen is the same..."

Stark's figure curled up on the hospital bed moved slightly. He heard Peter say, "Fine, actually, I just had a dream, that's why I couldn't sleep. I dreamed of my father, but maybe it wasn't my father. After all, I've never seen him, right?"

Finally, in the long silence, Stark sighed. He turned back, his eyes staring straight at the ceiling, and said, "Howard was a drunkard, dead drunk every day."

"When he was drunk, he would curse everything. He was a rude bastard. The most common sentence he said to me when he was sober was, 'You don't understand anything.'"

"Of course, of course I didn't understand anything. I was only a few years old then."

"I was born with an interest in cars and liked to tinker with those metal parts, but when I made something, he would never praise me, only say it was a pile of junk."

"Alcohol burned out the brain he was so proud of." Stark snorted coldly and said, "So much so that in the final stage of his life, he didn't come up with any decent inventions."

"Look at me now! Stark Group is better than before, and I've come up with more inventions that can change the world!"

"He was wrong, wrong to the point of absurdity. Little Stark didn't 'not understand anything.' The one who truly didn't understand anything was him—Howard Stark..."

Looking at the silent Peter, Stark turned his face away and said, "You didn't hear the story you wanted, right? What did you think you would hear? That we were a loving father and son, or that he taught me knowledge, teaching me to invent and create hand-in-hand since I was a child?"

Stark lowered his eyelids. When he squinted, his long eyelashes would always cast dense shadows in those brown eyes.

Peter lowered his head. He crossed his hands and covered his chin, then said, "Before, I had never dreamed of my father, and I had never thought of him, because I had never seen him at all. There was no part of my memory related to him. I didn't even have dreams to dream."

Stark glanced at him and said, "Fine, maybe there were some not-so-bad times. Maybe in... a very, very long time ago, so early that I can't even remember clearly, I remember we also stood in front of the workbench together. We... I don't remember what we specifically did, but there was always such a time..."

Stark turned his head to look at Peter, but he didn't see any sadness on Peter's face. In Peter's still somewhat childish brows and eyes, there wasn't the loneliness and sadness he had imagined.

Stark thought, perhaps this was normal. Peter had lived like this for more than ten years. In his life, his uncle played the role of a father, but perhaps it was only a part.

Ben Parker was an ordinary person who did his best to pass on the best qualities he had—strength and kindness—to Peter.

But Peter was a genius. Stark knew this better than anyone. Geniuses need resonance, need communication between chess rivals, and the collision of sparks of thought.

When Peter and Stark looked at each other, they both thought that this really confirmed the saying: geniuses are always lonely.

Stark saw Peter's gaze fall on the reactor in his chest. He laid his head flat and continued to stare at the ceiling with his eyes, watching the light flashing outside the window, leaving all kinds of shapes on the ceiling.

"If the problem with this reactor isn't solved, you will die, right?" Peter asked him. "I heard Yin Sen say that."

"They always make a mountain out of a molehill. Actually, I have no problem. I..."

"You don't know how I felt when I saw the scene of your death in my Spider-Sense," Peter said.

"The Skeleton Who Plants Vegetables in the Exotic Land"

Stark heard a trace of trembling in his tone.

"... The laboratory equipment at Stark Tower is very advanced. I like the environment here very much, and the decoration here is also very gorgeous. I have never lived in such a good place."

"But more importantly, no one had ever taught me the knowledge of manufacturing equipment or experimental methods before. No one had ever been with me at the workbench, assembling those parts, and then testing those finished products together..."

"When my Spider-Sense told me that all of this was about to end, I couldn't accept it at all..." Peter's trailing tone was very low, the final syllable falling to the ground, almost collapsing at a touch.

Stark closed his eyes, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He said, "What do you want me to say? Want me to tell you myself that in one year and three months, perhaps all of this will be over?"

In Stark's pitch-black field of vision, he still began to recall those days that were so far away he couldn't remember them clearly, searching for the imperceptible fragments in his memory.

To recall the good times he once had with Howard.

On this very night, when he stumbled to find these fragments of memory from the cracks, Stark finally admitted that he was missing them.

Tonight, his pain was stronger than any other night, so this longing was also stronger.

Howard was not the person he should think of when in pain, because those good times would never happen again, because his father was already dead.

Until this moment, Stark realized that when he went from being a son to being a father, he felt that compared to having his child think of him on painful nights, any father would rather live long and let those good times never end.

Stark felt that his desire to survive had never been as strong as it was now—he didn't want to become Howard, the person he hated the most.

He didn't want to use an abrupt death to let his child be reminded for the rest of his life that those good times had passed forever and would never come back.

So his child could only be forced to forget, tearing apart the happiest and most glorious days of his life, hiding them in the most marginal corner of his memory, and denying their existence.

On this silent night, no one saw that Stark, who had fallen asleep, had his fingers, which were climbing along the texture of his no-longer-young skin, gripping the guardrail of the hospital bed, just like he had held that model on several late nights.

And no one knew that in Peter's next dream, he saw that strange night sky again. Those remaining memories became clear in the dream. He heard two gunshots and saw a string of scattered pearl necklaces.

In his hazy dream, the previous dream seemed to have returned. Peter saw another world, another pair of father and son, holding hands, slowly walking toward the universe.

He saw, behind that black tide, those good times that perhaps even the bat itself couldn't find.

-R: The Great Bat Incident (End)

-------------------- Side Note --------------------

Ten thousand words delivered today!

The first Marvel big event is finished. If you have any feelings or suggestions, you can write them in the comment section. The author will read them all!

Please vote and tip! ===== CHAPTER 145 =====