As the lights came back on, Steve's movements began to rewind. He kept stepping backward until he returned to the entrance of Stark Tower. Before entering, he looked up. His gaze passed through Stark Tower's glass curtain wall and into Stark's laboratory.
Inside the lab, Jarvis controlled the robot's body and fitted a strange electric shock device onto his arm.
Stark lay silently on the operating table. The only sound in the laboratory was the crackle of electricity, making it feel less like a scientific center and more like a prison filled with instruments of torture.
Suddenly, a portal appeared in the laboratory, and Loki and Strange stepped out of it together.
"You came at just the right time..." Stark said, but Loki looked shocked. He stared at Stark and asked, "Do you really have to use suicide to find Death?"
Stark, lying on the operating table, nodded with complete certainty, showing no sign of wavering.
Stark turned to Strange. Strange looked at Loki and said, "See? I told you. I've talked myself hoarse these past few days, but I just can't talk him out of it!"
After saying that, he paced anxiously beside the operating table and said, "I knew it. He and Schiller are both crazy. What could possibly require suicide?!"
Having only just received this news, Loki frowned at Stark and began to assess his state of mind. He thought more deeply than Strange did, and thus had gained some understanding of Stark's motives.
A few days earlier, Stark had found Strange and asked him to help carry out his next plan. But the very first step of that plan had left Strange utterly dumbfounded: Stark wanted to find Death by killing himself.
Of course, Stark did not absolutely have to use such an extreme method to