Chapter 5036: Advance to York, Advance (End)

As expected. By the time Pepper woke up and Iron Man recovered, wanting to catch Claw, Claw had long since fled. The League of Assassins' killers had also vanished without a trace; that final shot — no one knew who fired it, so they could only swallow the loss. The others were much the same.

Then they discovered that OsCorp and Roxxon had come from behind to seriously threaten their conglomerates. At this point, even the most stubborn among them couldn't laugh anymore.

They had no choice but to seriously start thinking about what to do. Originally, the option of an alliance would never have appeared in their minds, but — isn't there someone instilling it from the outside?

"You mean we can run a joint operation?" Iron Man's complexion was still a bit pale. Brainiac hadn't held back; he'd nearly had his head twisted off by his own manufactured armor.

"Is there any other way?" Greed asked. "You have to know, your competitors aren't just those legitimate companies. Hydra and the Court of Owls will use every underhanded trick. If you don't manage things properly, you'll lose your lives."

Iron Man's face was grim; he naturally knew. The main reason people like them could guarantee their safety was money. Not to mention anything else — the conglomerate headquarters were built like permanent fortifications, and even once built, they cost money to maintain. Without money, even the sturdiest turtle shell would rust. Once they lost those means of protecting themselves, those criminal organizations would take their lives immediately.

This crisis made them realize their margin for error wasn't as large as they'd imagined. Or rather, originally it might have been large, but double the criminal organizations — it wasn't just a numbers increase. Each had their specialties, and they complemented each other: some dealt physical damage, some magical damage, and some stood by providing support and armor shredding — who could withstand that?

Before, Iron Man had insisted on Stark Industries' transformation because he felt he couldn't kill himself. Now he knew: leaving Stark Industries, the outside was all storm and tempest; he truly couldn't just mess around recklessly.

If Darkseid's invasion made the superheroes realize Earth wasn't that safe, this time made these capitalists realize — never mind bankruptcy, if you earn money too slowly, you can't keep up with these villains who diligently strive to destroy the world. So what's there to say? Professional matters can only be left to professionals.

"Fine." Iron Man lived up to his flexible bottom line. "I can agree to a joint operation, but I still want a certain degree of autonomy..."

"Then you have to think about how much to stake." Greed analyzed for him. "The more you invest in the joint operation, the greater your say naturally becomes. What do you think you can put up?"

Iron Man gritted his teeth: "Extremis."

Greed raised a brow, seemingly somewhat surprised: "You're really willing to put up Extremis technology?"

"Of course not all of it." Iron Man crossed his arms. "The master strain I'd never give them, but I can continuously provide improved versions of Extremis, even tailor them to what they want."

"That's enough." Greed said. "That'll give you a very large advantage in the joint operation. So, who do you plan to put in charge?"

"Pepper, of course." Iron Man had just spoken when he corrected himself. "... No, won't work. She's already injured, and still has to oversee Stark Industries' operations. Then me..."

"You sure?" Greed stared at him. He didn't believe Iron Man didn't know he actually had no business talent; a man this smart couldn't possibly fail to understand this much. He just didn't want to admit it, plus felt he couldn't kill himself, so he wanted to keep trying repeatedly.

"How about you go?" Iron Man waved a hand. "I've got tech to handle, no time for this. It just so happens you're on good terms with them too — you go."

"Sounds like you paid my salary." Greed said. "Consultation fees are consultation fees; this would be extra."

"Am I short on money?" Iron Man asked. "Alright, you hurry up and go; the compensation definitely won't disappoint you."

"If you were leading, I wouldn't worry about management quality. But you can't stay here forever — what about after?" Thomas looked at Greed and asked.

"I can teach Bruce." Greed said. "Though it might not make him a business genius overnight, as long as he learns to maintain a certain pattern, it'll be enough to sustain things."

Thomas nodded with satisfaction. The one he was most uneasy about was actually Bruce. With so many sons, all accomplished, he naturally paid extra attention to the one who wasn't worry-free.

He didn't care whether the joint operation made money — or rather, with Greed involved, profit was inevitable. He cared more about Spider-Man's progress; since Greed said he'd teach, even learning a trick or two would be enough.

"What about LuthorCorp? Thor won't let Luthor off easily this time, and the Restoration Alliance might not back down either."

"The key is Nick Fury." Greed said. "It just depends on what price he wants."

"You want to fish Luthor out?" Nick looked at Greed. "I don't see his necessity in LuthorCorp; you could completely ignore him and find your own way to control LuthorCorp."

Greed shook his head: "The key lies in the necessity of balancing these three powers. You kick Luthor out of LuthorCorp — what if LuthorCorp becomes too strong?"

Though this sounded a bit like a personal attack, Nick thought about it and it was indeed the case. Luthor wasn't actually that smart; although his control over the conglomerate was somewhat stronger than Spider-Man's, it wasn't a dimensional lead — otherwise he wouldn't have maneuvered himself into prison, with the conglomerate nearly splitting apart on the spot.

And really letting the Court of Owls or the League of Assassins control LuthorCorp wouldn't be any good either; giving it back to Luthor was instead a weakening of the evil forces.

"You go talk to him?" Nick asked.

"No. You handle Luthor and Thor's side. But I guarantee that once the joint operation model is established, the Restoration Alliance will get funding immediately, and I'll go all out to assist with the reception. You can trust me to handle things."

"I'm curious what your goal is." Nick said. "However much money you make through the joint operation body, you can't take it with you — what exactly do you want to do?"

"The answer lies in the riddle." Greed didn't hide it either. "I want to strangle every factor that could affect the wedding in the cradle. Money is the most important influencing factor; without money nothing gets done. If they're really allowed to freely withdraw or inject capital, how could the wedding possibly go well?"

Nick was somewhat speechless: "So you beat up all three major conglomerates just to make them obediently cough up money?"

"I've always advocated self-reliance; waiting for handouts has no future. The money needed, I'll go into their pockets and take it myself."

"A reputation well deserved." Nick exclaimed.

"This is to resolve the economic crisis." Greed looked at Pride and explained. "Otherwise, once the wedding starts, this one wants to withdraw funding, that one wants to compress the budget, this side makes a fuss because they're not satisfied so they won't pay, that side makes demands and when they're not met they cause trouble — how can the wedding proceed?"

Pride folded the newspaper and nodded. He knew the situations Greed described were very likely to happen, because that's how it was in the comics.

Any major turning point in a character's life will inevitably go wrong at some link. Having it fall apart at the wedding is already generous; most likely it'd blow up during the preparation phase, encountering all kinds of problems and collapsing.

Planning a wedding isn't just planning a wedding; to make the wedding happen, you first have to control every link that could possibly affect it.

Like eating a bowl of rice — you have to start from planting rice, even from reclaiming wasteland. If you don't personally control every link, every link will have problems. No germination, no heading, no yield. Transport truck explodes, rice cooker explodes. Bowl cracks, chopsticks break. Even if all that's handled, the rice in your mouth might still be half-cooked.

The entire Marvel universe is a capital-letter Murphy's Law: if things can develop in a bad direction, they definitely will. But coincidentally, there's exactly such a person who likes to wrap a huge pile of dumplings for this bit of vinegar.

Greed is the type who, to eat one mouthful of rice, arranges things starting from planting rice. He doesn't even start from reclaiming wasteland — to occupy this land, he first wages war on a neighboring country, and the reason for launching the war is just to eat rice. Marvel has been making mistakes since the beginning of time; Greed has been patching things up since the beginning of time — how is that not a two-way rush?

Since arriving in this universe, busy with this whole big circle, practically putting everyone through the wringer — it was actually just so the money for holding the wedding could be stably paid out.

"Did you go find Starfire?" Greed asked again.

"Not yet, I have an appointment with her for the afternoon." Pride glanced at his watch. "What about it?"

"Nothing." Greed shook his head.

"Was Loki caught by Thor again? Can he be kept locked up this time?" Pride asked again.

"Locking him up is definitely impossible." Greed sighed. "I still maintain that view — Loki's problem cannot be solved within the Nine Realms. They shouldn't keep internally consuming themselves here."

"Looks like you've got another plan." Pride said with certainty.

"I always have a plan." Greed smiled. "Have you gone to see the church? How's the environment?"

"Don't mention it." Pride said with a headache. "Don't know if Lucifer mixed in private goods, but the other buildings were all pick-one-of-two leftovers, while the church was directly merged two-into-one. It's many times larger than Milan Cathedral; that Jesus statue nearly catches up to the Statue of Liberty."

Greed's movement paused: "That big? Then the security blind spots must be many?"

"Of course, Natasha's nearly going crazy." Pride said. "Throw in two hundred agents and not a ripple; pure security personnel added up to five hundred, barely achieving seamless patrol, but still many blind spots — she's already preparing to hire mutants."

"That's not bad." Greed nodded. "Mutants are all scene-people, most suited for such spacious environments."

"I'm waiting on the defense map." Pride said. "Agents will do their best to eliminate all blind spots, but it won't necessarily be perfect; might need Morbius to step in at the time, after all they're the most familiar with the church."

"I thought you'd say Bishop, but same difference — Bishop's most familiar with the back garden." Greed laughed.

"I did consider Bishop." Pride said with a frown. "Just, my thought was: why not let him be the priest? I'm afraid an ordinary priest can't withstand it."

"That won't do. He's only read a few pages of the Bible." Greed shook his head. "You sending him is no better than sending Bruce — those two's understanding of Catholicism isn't much different."