Though it was already late autumn, the West Coast sun was still scorching. Stark lay on a beach lounger and took a sip of juice.
Pepper sat on the lounger beside him, applying sunscreen as she watched the leisurely Stark. "You just handed your lab over to another universe's version of yourself? Are you sure he can handle the work in our universe?"
"It's not like I brought him here to do my work for me." Stark spread his hands. "I had the Peter from his universe bring him over purely because Big Trouble is coming for me—and not just one. If I didn't get out early, I'd definitely be in deep trouble."
Pepper leaned forward curiously. "What kind of trouble could make the great Stark abandon even his own experiments and rush to the West Coast overnight to keep me company?"
Stark took another sip of juice and let out a deep sigh. After thinking for a long while, he finally said, "It's too complicated. Hard to explain."
Meanwhile, in the Stark Tower laboratory in New York, the unlucky Stark who had been tricked into taking the blame was pondering a philosophical question—did parents from a parallel universe count as his own parents?
Theoretically, they should not. If every parallel-universe Stark had a pair of parents, then everyone's parents were their own. They could not be mixed up.
But the problem was that Starks in most universes had already lost their parents, while for some reason, the Stark of this Central Universe still had both of them alive. Emotionally speaking, it was hard for Stark to answer Maria's questioning with a simple, "You're not my mother."
Besides, Stark knew that even if he said he came from a parallel universe, Maria would definitely ask who he had ultimately married,