Superhuman Healing Reaches Level Four

When Tony Stark walked into the Presidential Suite, Russell was just coming out of the bathroom.

Wrapped in a bathrobe, his hair still dripping, he glanced at Tony without a flicker of expression, as though looking at a delivery driver who had arrived late.

"Tony Stark," Russell said.

"Russell." Tony stepped inside, his gaze sweeping over the room—the book lying open on the sofa, the dark-web phone on the coffee table, the neatly folded pajamas in the corner.

Finally, his eyes settled on the two glass containers that had yet to be cleared away.

Concentrated Nitric Acid. Concentrated Hydrochloric Acid. The labels were perfectly clear.

"No wonder people say Mutants are all freaks. You really did soak in Aqua Regia."

"It was diluted," Russell said.

"Diluted Aqua Regia," Tony repeated, as if savoring a bad joke.

"You know why they call it Aqua Regia? Because it dissolves gold. You know gold is one of the most stable metals on Earth? And you used something that dissolves it as bathwater."

"It works well." Russell sat down on the sofa.

Tony stared at him for a few seconds, then smiled.

Not a polite, social smile. The kind that said, I'm starting to like you.

"You're a lunatic."

"And you're a tin can." Russell raised an eyebrow. "We've both got problems."

Tony sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs, looking as comfortable as if he were at home.

But his eyes never stopped moving. They scanned the room, assessing every detail like a precision instrument at work.

"You killed a hundred and twenty military personnel," Tony said without preamble. "Blew up five Sentinels, destroyed a building, then moved into Manhattan's most expensive hotel and had your little sidekicks hand out piles of cash to homeless people."

He paused. "Did I miss anything?"

"I didn't burn down that building," Russell said, stating a fact. "The landlord did it for the insurance. I just killed the arsonist."

"Oh, well, that's fine, then." Tony's tone was casual, but his eyes grew more serious.

After a few seconds of silence, Tony took a check from the inside pocket of his suit, set it on the coffee table, and pushed it over.

It was a long number with a lot of zeroes.

Russell glanced at it without picking it up. "What's this?"

"Compensation," Tony said. "I looked into that money of yours.

"The serial numbers are random, the watermarks are perfect, and even counterfeit detectors can't tell the difference.

"Technically, the money you made is more genuine than what the Federal Reserve prints. Legally, though—" He shrugged. "You'd be better off not getting caught."

"So you're paying those homeless people on my behalf?"

"I'm donating to this city," Tony corrected. "Your money is yours, and mine is mine. No one knows where your money came from. Everyone knows where mine came from.

"When you hand out money, the government investigates. When I do it, the government gives me a medal."

He stood, slipped his hands into his pockets, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Manhattan skyline. "I don't care which laboratory you escaped from or how many people you've killed. I only want to know one thing—"

He turned to face Russell.

"What do you want?"

It was a direct question.

So direct that Russell fell silent for a few seconds.

"Power," he said.

"And then?"

"Then..." Russell thought about it. "Then no one will dare strap me to an operating table again."

Tony looked at him with an emotion that was hard to pin down. It was neither sympathy nor approval, but something more complicated: a sense of recognition tempered by scrutiny.

"You know," Tony said, "you can't stay hidden much longer. The military is looking for you. S.H.I.E.L.D. is looking for you. Professor X is looking for you. There are probably a dozen other groups I don't even know about looking for you.

"You're staying in this hotel under your real name, sending two young women out to hand out money. You don't look like you're hiding."

"I'm not hiding," Russell said calmly.

"Then you're waiting."

Russell didn't deny it.

Tony sat down again, more relaxed this time.

"You said you escaped from a laboratory. That laboratory belonged to Agarwal. They specialize in Mutant genetics. Your genes came from Magneto and Wolverine."

"You did your homework."

"I don't need sleep to dig things up. If it's documented online or caught on camera, JARVIS can find what I'm after. I even found out that Professor X says he can't read your mind.

"An eighteen-year-old kid shut out the most powerful telepath on Earth." He paused. "You really are special."

"You sound like you're complimenting yourself."

"I sound prouder when I compliment myself," Tony said.

Russell smiled because he had thought of something involving Iron Man, and it was rather funny.

Tony noticed and smiled too.

In that moment, the two of them reached a subtle, unspoken understanding.

You don't like me. I don't like you. But we can sit down and talk.

Then Russell said something that shattered it.

"Do you know how your parents died?"

Tony's smile froze.

The room went silent for a full five seconds.

It was no ordinary silence. It was the suffocating stillness before a storm, as though someone had sucked all the air from the room.

"What did you say?" Tony's voice was quiet, but every word cut like a blade.

"Howard and Maria Stark," Russell said, as calmly as if reading a weather report. "December 16, 1991. On their way home from Washington. A car crash. You know it wasn't a car crash."

Tony stood up.

He leaned forward slightly, fists clenched until his knuckles went white. The light from the Arc Reactor in his chest shone through his shirt, unnaturally bright.

"You'd better explain yourself." His voice was still quiet, but it was no longer relaxed. It was the last scrap of restraint before fury took over.

"The Winter Soldier." Russell held nothing back as he told Iron Man what he should have known all along.

"Bucky Barnes. Hydra brainwashed and controlled him. He intercepted your parents' car on the way to the airport and stole the Super Soldier Serum. Howard died at the scene. Maria died in the hospital the next day."

Tony's face went white as paper.

"And Nick Fury knew," Russell added, delivering the final blow.

Tony said nothing.

He stood there like a statue—or a machine running at overload, ready to explode. His breathing grew ragged, and the light in his chest flickered like an unstable pulsar.

Russell watched him without sympathy, guilt, or regret.

He hadn't said it to hurt Tony. He had said it to tell him the truth, one Tony would learn sooner or later and deserved to know.

A few seconds later, perhaps longer, Tony turned and walked toward the door.

He didn't look back, say goodbye, or make a threat. His back was as taut as a bowstring about to snap.

The door closed softly, but that quiet sound was more unsettling than a slam.

Felicity, who had slipped back in unnoticed, poked her head out from the inner room. She had heard them.

Not everything, but more than enough.

Laura stood behind her, expressionless. Yet something flickered in her eyes—not fear, but an older, more instinctive awareness of the storm to come.

"Lord Russell..." Felicity spoke softly.

"It's fine." Russell looked down at the check still lying on the coffee table, with its long number and many zeroes.

"You've run out of money, right? I've got plenty more. Keep handing it out."

When Tony walked out through the hotel's revolving door, Happy was waiting by the car.

At the sight of Tony's face, Happy straightened. He opened his mouth, then closed it without a word.

"Home." Tony's steady voice was rough as sandpaper.

Happy opened the rear door.

Tony got in, shut the door, sank into the leather seat, and closed his eyes.

His fingers trembled slightly against his knee. It wasn't fear, but something suppressed to its limit and searching for a way out.

The car pulled away and merged into traffic.

Outside the window, Manhattan's neon lights came on in the dusk. Their glow filtered through the tinted glass, casting shifting bands of light and shadow across Tony's face.

He opened his eyes, took out his phone, found a number with no name attached, and called it.

It rang twice.

When the call connected, the person on the other end spoke first.

"Tony, Russell—"

"You knew." Tony cut Nick Fury off.

The other end fell silent for a few seconds. Then Nick Fury asked, "Knew what?"

"About my parents."

This silence lasted longer.

"My parents' deaths weren't an accident. They were killed by a man called the Winter Soldier."

"Tony—"

"Don't say my name." Tony cut him off again. "You knew. You knew all along. You let Hydra's killer walk free for thirty years, and you never told me."

"It's complicated." Fury's voice finally wavered, like wind briefly disturbing the surface of a lake before it went still again.

"Bucky Barnes wasn't the murderer. He was a weapon with no control over himself. Hydra was responsible."

"You're still defending him." Tony laughed, but there was no warmth in it.

"You know, I was just upstairs talking to an eighteen-year-old Mutant.

"When he told me, my first instinct was to kill him. Not because he'd done anything wrong—because he told me the truth.

"That's how people are, right? We'd rather kill the person telling the truth than face it."

Fury said nothing.

"I don't need you to tell me where the Winter Soldier is. I can find him myself. And for now, I'm done cleaning up the messes those rotten politicians make."

"Tony—"

"I said, don't say my name."

He hung up.

Dusk settled over Downtown Manhattan.

Felicity stood on a street corner with a stack of fresh bills she had just gotten from Russell.

Laura stood two meters behind her, hands in her hoodie pockets, eyes sweeping every corner of the street.

A homeless man huddled in a sleeping bag at the mouth of an alley. A few coins lay at the bottom of the paper cup in front of him.

Felicity walked over, crouched, and put two hundred-dollar bills in his cup.

He looked down, then up at her. Something close to breaking showed in his clouded eyes.

"Is this... real?"

"It's real," Felicity said. "A kind man named Russell asked me to give it to you."

The man stared at Benjamin Franklin on the bills. The balding Founding Father stared back without expression.

Tears rolled down the man's wrinkled face and fell into the paper cup, wetting the coins.

[Shock Emotion +1]

[Gratitude Emotion +1]

[Awe Emotion +1]

On the hotel's top floor, Russell lay in the bathtub, the orange Aqua Regia rippling gently around him.

In his mind, the system's notifications played like an endless background melody. His Emotion Points climbed by dozens every second.

He kept his eyes closed, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

He could print money while soaking in the bath, have someone else hand it out, and wait for his Emotion Points and experience to rise.

This life was far more comfortable than he had imagined.

The only slight inconvenience was that he was practically living in a medicine pot, spending all day in a tub of Special Medicinal Bath.

[Emotion Points exceeded 1,000]

[Emotion Points exceeded 1,500]

[Superhuman Healing Experience continues to increase...]

When his Emotion Points neared 4,000, he heard that familiar, wonderful sound.

[Superhuman Healing (5,000/5,000) advanced to level four]

Deep within his body, every cell underwent a subtle change at once.

They didn't divide any faster, but they divided with greater precision. Instead of proliferating blindly, they repaired his body with greater direction and purpose.

Damaged tissue was identified and replaced within seconds, leaving almost no chance for scar tissue to form. Even the tiny injuries that had accumulated over time at the cellular level were being repaired one by one.

Russell opened his eyes and looked at his hand.

He picked up the fruit knife beside him and drew it across his palm. The wound began closing the instant the blade left his skin.

In less than a second, not even a mark remained.

The corners of his mouth lifted. In terms of how fast his wounds healed, he could now rival Wolverine—perhaps even surpass him.