"You said you planned to shut down Stark's weapons manufacturing division?" Schiller asked.
"But you shouldn't have come to me about this," Schiller continued.
Stark rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Because of the mess you people caused, Pepper received thousands of employee complaints over the past few days. She had to redesign the entire employee benefits system and has been run ragged."
"Actually, that isn't the point." Schiller said, "If you want to talk, she's always willing to listen."
Stark touched the bridge of his nose and said nothing.
After a while, he said, "Fine. I know how much pressure this decision will put on her. I know I'm a damn selfish bastard. I know she's already helped me enough. I know I shouldn't do this, but I have no other choice."
Schiller opened the notebook beside him. As he wrote, he said, "Let me think. What you're trying to do now is like sentencing a gun to death."
"But my weapons killed many people."
"The weapons had no choice either," Schiller said.
"Did you expect every last one of them to be like Jarvis? Able to open their mouths, able to protest to you? Do you think they enjoyed going to that hellhole in Afghanistan? Or do you think that when a bullet was manufactured, its lifelong dream was to go to a battlefield and kill someone?"
Stark sat silently across from him. He said with unusual vulnerability, "I admit it. I blamed all of this on weapons because I know I was the real culprit. But I can't judge myself."
"But I also know, Mr. Stark, that you can't judge yourself not because you want to cling to a miserable existence, but because you believe you have the ability to make up for all of this. When a crisis arises, only you have the ability to save the world and turn the tide. It was this sense of responsibility that made you do these things."
"But let me be frank. Have you ever considered that insisting on finding a person or thing to hold responsible for something, then judging it, is actually quite arbitrary and reckless?"
"But everything has a root cause."
"But that root cause isn't necessarily simply right or wrong. You should understand better than I do that this world isn't black and white. You found the thing you thought should be held responsible, yet it didn't make the whole situation any better. You think weapons should bear responsibility, so you want to shut down the entire weapons manufacturing division, keep Pepper awake for several nights, leave many employees unemployed, and even the people on those battlefields won't thank you."
"Is the pain brought by digging all the way to the root really worth it?"
Stark looked deeply pained. The features of his entire face had nearly scrunched together. If Spider-Man's transformation had been like a grand fireworks display, then Stark's transformation was perhaps the inward collapse of a dying star.
Stark still didn't know what kind of conflict this very same question would later create between him and Steve, ultimately destroying the entire Avengers.
"My brain tells me I can't stop thinking about right and wrong," Stark said.
"Well then, your brain has to take responsibility for that. It refuses to let you go, so you should take it up with it. That's the theory you insist on, isn't it?"
"Ask your brain whether there's a way to achieve what you want without hurting the people around you. That's the answer it should give you, because it's the very thing making you suffer so much."
Stark did not feel any better. He slumped back in his chair and said, "Look at me, the idiot who hired a devil Doctor at a million dollars an hour. A Satan..."
"Your damned therapy has never brought me any positive changes. Every time I leave here, I feel even worse."
Stark practically ground the words out through clenched teeth.
For once, Schiller did not joke with him. "You can think of me as a catalyst. You'll understand someday..."
"Thinking causes pain. No one is exempt. If I give you the shot early, you'll be much better off later. You'll thank me."
Stark made the sign of the cross over his chest. "If you keep being this shamelessly arrogant, you'll almost surpass Howard's place in my heart."
"This is the first time I've heard you bring up your father on your own initiative. Strange, though. Most people prefer calling for their mothers when they're in pain."
Stark slammed his fist down hard on the table. He had no intention of admitting that he had brought up his father because he was hurting.
He wasn't some fledgling in need of shelter. That eagle that had flown away from the cliff and never returned wasn't someone he should think of in moments of despair and pain either.
Schiller said, "Perhaps that's why you built yourself armor. You wear that iron shell everywhere you go. You think only it can protect you, that only when you wear it are you the strongest Iron Man."
"But I have to say, if you can't learn to take it off, you'll never become the real Iron Man."
Schiller had considered before that Stark and Batman really were somewhat alike. Their childhood experiences and educational backgrounds were strangely similar, and the methods they chose when facing certain problems were astonishingly alike—
They made themselves a pile of weapons that no one else could create, armed themselves with them, believed that made them invincible, and then fell into agonized struggle when they discovered that it couldn't solve every problem.
Schiller scribbled in his notebook. Stark asked, "What are you writing?"
"Steve's therapy has temporarily ended, so Natasha took back the listening device. I have no choice but to write your case notes by hand."
Stark narrowed his eyes. "You wrote down everything I just said?"
"Not everything, but I remember very clearly that one line where you called for your daddy."
"Five million dollars."
Schiller directly tossed the notebook in front of Stark. Stark picked up a lighter and set it on fire, muttering curses under his breath. "How did I ever fall for the nonsense of a damned vampire Doctor?"
"It's getting late. You should go back. Hiding out here won't solve your argument with Miss Pepper," Schiller said.
Stark clearly had no desire to leave. "That Spider-Boy can stay here, so why can't I? I don't even mind this rundown place of yours. You should consider yourself fortunate that you get to make breakfast for the genius Stark."
"Right, while Miss Pepper works overtime alone in Stark Tower. The employees have all gone home, and that building is dark and cold... Oh, Jarvis might keep her company. I hear Jarvis has emotions now. Maybe he understands Miss Pepper's loneliness better than you do."
Stark immediately could no longer sit still. He sprang from his chair, threw on his coat, and said, "I am not going to get jealous of my own AI butler. Absolutely not."
Schiller opened the clinic door for him. "Yes, of course, of course. God bless Jarvis."
After Stark left the clinic, he was in a terrible mood. All kinds of thoughts tangled into a mess in his mind.
He had long accepted that geniuses were lonely. He had spent most of his life that way. He had always thought he was living well—wealthy, intelligent, with enough means to realize his life's value. Even his excessive sense of responsibility had never troubled him. But he had never felt as much as he did today that he needed someone by his side.
For once, he did not call his armor. He even turned off his phone. He slowly walked down the street to a battered bus stop. The driver of the last bus reeked heavily of smoke, making Stark uncomfortable, but he still got on and found a seat.
Thanks to Schiller's fearsome reputation, few people dared to loiter around the nearby blocks. Stark safely took the bus out of Hell's Kitchen, then hailed a taxi on the streets of New York and got in.
"Stark Tower," Stark said.
The driver glanced at him through the rearview mirror. He didn't recognize him as the owner of Stark Industries. After all, Stark always looked radiant on television, while now he looked more like a dispirited middle-aged stray dog.
The taxi carried Stark through New York's cold neon glow. The streetscape sped backward beyond the windows. The Jazz Music playing in the taxi suited New York's late autumn perfectly. Stark sat in the back seat, elbows braced on his knees, covering his face with both hands.
He thought to himself, Fine, fine. I'm just a fragile little boy like this, not some great hero at all. Right now, I just want to see Pepper and give her a hug. To hell with saving the world.
Stark had never wanted to admit his own childishness. He preferred to call it innocence—the innocence unique to a genius.
But he had to admit that everyone needed someone in their life to play that role, like an eagle returning to its nest and sheltering its fledglings beneath its wings.
Pepper was only an ordinary person, not some eagle or bird of prey. Yet when Stark, this hungry fledgling, felt cold, he still wanted to burrow beneath her feathers.
After getting out of the taxi, Stark practically ran into the building in impatience. He knew the office on the top floor would still be lit; Pepper always worked there until late at night.
Stark hurried into the elevator. He didn't know what was wrong with him. Like an inexperienced young man, he nervously rubbed his hands together and paced in place inside the elevator. The moment the doors opened, he rushed out.
He wanted to say something to Pepper. He should say something.
But the entire floor was dark. Stark turned in place, unable to see a single office with its lights on. This was very unusual.
"Pepper, Pepper, are you there?" Stark shouted.
But only layers upon layers of echoes from the offices answered him. Stark punched the glass door beside him hard, then shouted, "Jarvis? Are you there? Jarvis, where did you go?"
The answer was the same silence.
Now Stark was truly panicking. If Jarvis didn't respond, then Jarvis had likely been hijacked or had his power cut off. If someone had really done that, then their target had to be Pepper.
Stark ran frantically through the offices, heading for the one Pepper used most often.
But without his armor, Stark was only an ordinary person. He had no night vision, and with Jarvis unresponsive, the entire office's smart lighting system wouldn't turn on.
The moment Stark rushed in, he tripped over an office chair lying across his path. After climbing back up, he realized he couldn't see anything around him, much less inspect any details.
He opened his mouth to call for his armor, but without Jarvis, the armor's intelligent remote controls would not respond either.
Stark was genuinely on the verge of breaking down. He suddenly realized that everything he had thought was completely under his control did not truly belong to him. Without that outer shell, Iron Man was merely an ordinary person unable to see in the darkness.
His voice trembled as he fumbled through Pepper's desk in the dark. As if trying to reassure himself, he murmured, "Damn it, she'll be fine... This is Stark Tower. No one can breach its defenses. I'm Stark..."
Suddenly, the lights across the entire floor came on. Stark's eyes were dazzled by the brightness. He covered them and turned around, only to find Pepper standing in the office doorway with a remote control in hand. Stark froze.
Before Pepper could say anything, Stark rushed over and hugged her. Pepper had never seen Stark so terrified.
She heard Stark repeating, "I knew you'd be fine... Of course you'd be fine..."
Pepper sighed. This fledgling, already nearly larger than an eagle, was so detestable—and yet so impossible to refuse.
Now, rewind time a little, back to shortly after Stark had left the clinic, when Schiller received a call from Pepper.
Before you continue