The clinic's business took off over the next week. Even calling it "taking off" was an understatement.
The number of patients each day climbed from ten to fifteen, then twenty.
Some came from the local area around 49th Street, some from the next few blocks over, and some even made the trip from Brooklyn.
The reason was simple—Lynn was frighteningly accurate at diagnosing people.
Just how accurate? Accurate enough to be scary.
A Puerto Rican man in his sixties came in with a cough.
"I've been coughing for two months. I've taken all kinds of cough medicine, but nothing's worked." Lynn hadn't even started asking questions yet.
He had already picked up on the barely audible crackle in the old man's breathing—deep in the right lower lobe.
All-Things Diagnosis popped up in sync.
"Your cough isn't from a cold. There's a small amount of fluid in your right lung, about three hundred milliliters."
"The cause is a slight leak in your heart's mitral valve. It isn't serious, but you need an echocardiogram to confirm it."
The old man froze. "Are you treating my cough or my heart?"
"Both. Your cough stems from your heart. You'll never get better with cough medicine alone unless you treat the heart problem."
The old man went to the hospital for an echocardiogram, though he remained skeptical.
The day the results came in, he returned with the report in hand, trembling. "Doctor, you were right on the money. Mild mitral valve regurgitation. Even the cardiology specialist at that big hospital asked who'd told me to get the test."
Similar things happened at least five times in one week.
A woman who was afraid to go to a big hospital because her husband beat her came in for a "sprained wrist."
The moment Lynn felt her pulse, he knew it wasn't a sprain—she had a hidden fracture in the distal radius, the kind that might not even show up on an X-ray.
He set it for her, then his Super Senses picked up the lingering smell of alcohol on her—
It wasn't hers. It was her husband's, soaked into her clothes through his sweat.
"Someone twisted your hand. You didn't sprain it yourself," Lynn said calmly.
The woman's eyes reddened, but she said nothing.
"I won't ask who did it. But given the location and angle of this fracture, if someone twists it with the same force again, it won't just crack—it'll break. And it might not be possible to set it."
He rummaged through a drawer and handed her a business card—
It had the contact information for a women's legal aid organization.
The woman took the card and left with her head bowed.
Only after closing the door did Lynn let out a quiet sigh.
He wasn't a saint—he knew exactly why he was doing this.
The business card and free treatment weren't acts of kindness. They were the result of a precise cost-benefit calculation: one grateful patient could bring in ten new ones. In a place like Hell's Kitchen, a good reputation in the community was the most valuable asset.
At the same time, he hadn't forgotten what really mattered.
Whenever things were quiet, Lynn would browse the news on his phone.
He could pick up on patterns hidden in scattered bits of information that ordinary people wouldn't notice.
On the third day, a news story caught his attention—
<Stark Industries CEO Tony Stark Misses Board Meeting Again. Spokesperson Says "Mild Cold">
Beside it was a recent photo of Tony Stark, taken at some charity gala a month earlier.
He analyzed every pixel in the photo.
Complexion.
Compared with a photo from the same time last year, Tony's skin had become about seven percent grayer.
This widespread grayness wasn't due to natural aging—aging first showed around the eyes and neck, but the grayness in Tony's photo was distributed evenly across his entire face.
It was a sign of a diffuse decline in blood circulation.
Weight.
Compared with a photo from six months earlier, the shadows around his cheekbones were about two millimeters deeper, and his jawline had grown more defined.
He was losing weight. Not the kind of weight loss that came from working out, but the kind that meant "muscle wasting."
Right hand.
The last three public photos showed Tony holding his coffee cup with his left hand.
When someone who usually favored his right hand suddenly switched to holding a cup with his left, it meant there was something wrong with his right hand.
The most likely cause: impaired fine motor control due to peripheral nerve damage.
Taking all the data into account, Lynn's brain reached a conclusion in two seconds:
Palladium poisoning.
Early to middle-stage symptoms.
The Palladium core in the Arc Reactor was slowly poisoning Tony Stark to death.
A valuable "big client" might be on the way.
If he could treat Tony—not, he didn't need to cure him completely, just slow the poisoning or provide crucial diagnostic information—he'd have a chance to copy Iron Man's abilities.
What was Tony Stark's talent?
Not the armor.
The armor was a tool.
It was that brain of his.
Engineering genius, invention, quantum mechanics, nanomaterials, energy systems... Bruce Wayne's Super Intelligence leaned toward detective work and tactics.
Tony Stark's intelligence leaned toward engineering and creation.
If the two complemented each other...
Lynn put down his phone.
He wasn't going to seek Tony out.
That would be too obvious, and beneath him.
He needed Tony to come to him.
To make that happen, he had to spread his reputation farther and higher—from the word of mouth in the Hell's Kitchen community to the level where it could reach Stark's social circle.
"I need to get even more famous," Lynn muttered to himself.
He had no idea that this "greater fame" would come in a way he hadn't anticipated.
The twelfth day after opening.
Lynn sensed something was wrong as soon as he opened the door that morning.
A two-meter-long banner with white lettering on a red background had appeared beneath the sign outside his clinic. It read:
"We Demand the Closure of This Unlicensed Black-Market Clinic! Give Our Community Back Its Peace!"
Three people stood beside the banner.
Deputy Director Griffin led the way. He'd made a point of changing into a dark suit and tie that morning. He certainly didn't look like he'd come in for treatment.
Behind him was a middle-aged woman in a gray suit. An ID badge bearing the words "New York Community Medical Association" hung from her chest.
At the back stood a young man with a backpack and a camera around his neck. He was holding a video camera.
A reporter.
It wasn't even nine yet, but seven or eight curious residents had already gathered outside.
Lynn stood at the clinic entrance with his morning coffee in hand. He glanced at the banner, then at Griffin.
Both abilities activated at once.
He completed a full scan of all three people in three seconds—
Griffin: pulse at seventy-eight, steady breathing, not nervous.
The soles of his leather shoes had a distinctive dark-red fiber in them, a material found only in the carpets of high-end hotels.
He'd been to some upscale hotel last night.
The same dark-red fibers were on the heels of the medical association woman's shoes, too.
She and Griffin had been at the same hotel last night—planning today's stunt together.
The reporter: the corner of a two-hundred-dollar bill peeked out of his backpack's side pocket—not part of his salary, but money he'd just been handed.
Also, his briefcase—no, the medical association woman's briefcase—wasn't fully zipped shut. The edge of a stack of documents showed through.
The paper quality and font were standard for a legal demand letter.
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