Mud and Rotten People (Part 1)

"I am a Doctor, not God."

Strange stood with his hands on his hips at the operating room door and said, "Besides, I'm a Doctor. I can't cure everything. You can't make me treat every patient!"

"So how is Dr. Connors?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask the instruments that perform the tests. I can't fully understand the data either."

Then Strange saw Schiller, Stark, and Peter looking at him with the kind of eyes that look at a slacker, and he completely exploded, shouting, "What do you take Doctor for? A wish-granting machine? You send me any patient with any illness, expecting me to cure them instantly. If I can't cure them, are you going to belittle my professional skills?"

Schiller said, "Alright, even if you can't cure him, you have to introduce us to someone who can."

Strange rolled his eyes and said, "Given his current state, you might as well go pray to God."

"I hope you can save him, and I'm willing to pay a lot of money for it," Stark said.

"All you ever talk about is money. I know you're rich, but not everything in this world can be solved with money. You brought a half-dead corpse here, what am I supposed to do?"

"Listen, you'd better do it right now..."

Stark stepped forward, pointed at Strange's shoulder, and spoke in a harsh tone. Strange also very unhappy. He pushed Stark away and said, "Ha, who do you expect to be a lackey of you rich people?"

As he said this, he glanced at Schiller. Before Stark could react, Schiller exploded, throwing a punch at Strange. Peter rushed forward to stop him.

"Hey, calm down, Mr. Stark! Calm down!"

Strange was bent over from the blow. He touched his nose, a little blood sticking to his hand. He muttered a curse under his breath, and Schiller grabbed his shoulder and dragged him away.

Strange didn't want to leave, but Schiller was too strong. He was Schiller and pulled out of the corridor. As soon as they turned the corner, Strange shouted, "What are you doing? Do you think I can't beat that damn arms dealer?!"

"Didn't you notice that his emotions are a bit abnormal? Are you planning to fight with a madman here?"

Strange, holding his breath, sat down on a chair in the hospital corridor and said, "I really don't understand why you guys are bothering an ordinary person. You're either rich or you know all those weird little tricks. Why are you even in my life?"

Schiller opened his mouth, but didn't say it. He couldn't very well tell Strange that someone was staring intently at his arm.

Meanwhile, Peter was trying to calm Stark down, feeling that Stark was being a bit too irritable, unlike usual.

Although Stark can be quite dramatic and sarcastic at times, he's generally not easily angered and can communicate calmly most of the time. But for some reason, Stark seems very irritable now.

Peter grabbed Stark's arm, trying to turn him around, but Stark grinned and swung his arm hard, shoving Peter away.

Peter stared at Stark's arm in astonishment. Even though he hadn't used much force, Stark was already much stronger than an ordinary person. Without his armor, Iron Man should just be an ordinary person. How could he possibly push away Spider-Man, who already possessed the power of Spider Mutation?

Peter was a little confused, but he felt that Stark was very strange.

He took a few steps back and saw Schiller waving at him from around the corner. Peter glanced back at Stark, but ultimately turned and ran over.

Stark stood still, shaking his head violently, sometimes leaning forward and backward, as if talking to thin air.

After Peter ran over, he asked Schiller, "What's wrong? Is Mr. Stark sick?"

"This illustrates a point," Schiller said. "Alcohol turns a person into a lump of mud."

After leaving the hospital, Stark didn't even call out to his Jaeger. He gritted his teeth and muttered, "Damn it! You can't do that! Peter's just a kid!"

"Let me eat his head, it will be delicious, you will love the feeling..." A deep and hoarse voice came from the air.

Stark said, "Listen, you piece of trash, if you dare to control my body again, I'll have Jarvis smash you into flour with a 500-decibel sonic cannon!"

This story begins a few days ago.

Since Obadiah had been in a coma, Stark Industries' weapons manufacturing division had been almost at a standstill. Even though Stark didn't know much about these business matters, he realized that his Uncle Obadiah was actually the backbone that had brought Stark Industries to where it was today.

Without Obadiah, a whole host of troubles followed.

Originally, Obadiah moved with ease between the military, Congress, and other arms dealers, and he wouldn't let anyone gain a single penny, not even the military.

But now that Obadiah is gone, Pepper is still good at handling some business matters, but he's not so sensitive to political maneuvering, and Stark knows nothing about it.

He suddenly realized that he had actually been in a vacuum all along. He only needed to stay in the laboratory and do his inventions every day. The waves of those strange struggles had no effect on him at all.

But now that Obadiah is gone, Stark has to face all of this on his own.

Stark does indeed have a genius-level brain, but his brain simply doesn't work in that direction. The military puts all sorts of pressure on him, and Stark doesn't have many options.

He couldn't understand the complex relationships between the various forces for a while, and even if his intelligence would allow him to learn them sooner or later, he would still be just as flustered at first.

The military seized this opportunity and acted decisively, using a propaganda war to put Stark Industries in a precarious situation, besieged on all sides.

Stark was under immense pressure, a feeling completely different from when experiments failed or inventions went awry. He couldn't even find an outlet for his frustrations, so he resorted to his old ways: smoking and drinking.

A jumble of extreme emotions flooded his mind, and this intense feeling happened to catch the attention of a homeless, outcast man.

Symbiote Venom – a unique Symbiote was the first to break away from its Symbiote mother, a genius child within the Symbiote.

As is well known, this race is attracted to all kinds of intense human emotions. Originally, Venom was attached to an ordinary reporter who had just gotten divorced, but when the reporter interviewed Stark, Venom found that the emotions emanating from the person in front of him and the charming scent emanating from his brain were simply irresistible to Venom.

So, taking advantage of the reporter shoving the microphone in Stark's face, this audacious Symbiote instantly detached from its original host and jumped onto Stark.

At first, Stark didn't notice anything amiss. Venom is an experienced Symbiote; when it first parasitizes a host, it will remain dormant for a period of time to avoid provoking too strong a resistance from the host.

But soon, Stark began to sense that something was wrong. He was no ordinary person; he possessed a brain cursed by knowledge. He keenly sensed that his intense negative emotions were being drawn out, which made him even more frantic as he began to numb himself with alcohol to ensure that those emotions would not erupt and harm others.

Jarvis also subtly reminded his master, through some data, that his mental state and personality were beginning to waver, which meant that Stark must have fallen into a strange state of being manipulated.

This state did not last long.

When the Lizardman stormed Stark Tower, Jarvis had to use emergency wake-up procedures to rouse Stark, who had been hungover all night. But in reality, Stark wasn't woken up by Jarvis, but by the Symbiote Venom inside him, which was screaming in agony due to the massive sound waves.

Stark then realized that his feeling of being controlled actually came from a mysterious alien creature that had parasitized his body.

Jarvis's sound waves caused Venom to surge wildly through Stark's body, Stark the alien creature's true form—a lump of black sludge.

He then discovered that this alien creature possessed intelligence comparable to that of humans, was not only able to communicate with him, but also claimed to have all of his personality and memories.

Indeed, that's what Venom says. He says this to every host because it effectively lowers their guard. He repeatedly emphasizes to the host the fact that they Symbiote and share a common destiny.

In a way, what he said was true. Although this race doesn't look good and appears sticky, in the comics, they are not an evil race. They are born as a blank slate.

They are more like an "inert race," unable to forcefully devour and erase the host's personality. Instead, they parasitize the host in a gentler way, with the host and Symbiote being more like partners than a relationship of control and being controlled.

The Symbiote army scattered throughout the universe has also parasitized many races, helping these aliens gain greater physical strength, but they mostly choose highly intelligent races.

This is because they need the host's independent personality to provide them with emotional energy, which is the foundation of their survival. Unlike some evil parasitic races that directly turn various intelligent beings into zombies without the ability to think, Symbiote cannot do this. If their hosts cannot think, then they will have no food.

Venom is aware of this; if it cannot gain the trust of its host, it will be forced to wander and starve every day.

In Stark's eyes, Venom was a perfect meal ticket. Stark was in a slump and his mood fluctuated greatly every day, which Venom could gain a lot of energy from.

But Venom soon realized that he had underestimated the importance of finding meal tickets.