Sorry, I forgot to replace the original file after revising the draft locally yesterday before uploading it.
I'm sorry ˶ˊᜊˋ˶, I'm such a fool (｡◕ ◕｡)
The incident occurred without any warning.
It was Phastos first noticed the error.
That morning, he went to Tony's private lab to discuss the plan with Tony, but no one answered after knocking for a long time. He asked JARVIS to retrieve the access control records, which showed that Tony had been inside for a full forty-seven hours.
Phastos's heart skipped a beat, and he contacted Pepper to have JARVIS force the unlock.
As the door slowly slid open, the sight of the entire laboratory made him gasp.
The walls, the cement floor, and even the ceiling were covered with densely packed formulas and design drawings, the handwriting layered upon layered.
More than a dozen holographic screens were all on, running never-before-seen streams of code, so fast that the lines were obscured, scrolling down like a waterfall.
Tony sat in the chair in the middle of the workbench, his back to the door, holding an electronic pen in his hand, his fingertips flying across the control panel screen.
His eyes were wide open, staring intently at the screen, without even blinking.
The person was like a fully wound-up precision machine, with only their hands moving and only their pupils slightly following the code.
Phastos called him twice, but there was no response.
Tony froze abruptly, as if his computer had been interrupted, and slowly turned his head. His eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze was unnaturally bright, lacking the familiar playful and arrogant quality, instead displaying a cold, mechanical quality.
Tony's voice was completely flat, unlike Tony usual self. "Don't bother me! Almost done."
Phastos's heart sank.
This is definitely not Tony.
The news quickly spread throughout the base.
When Banner ran over carrying the medical kit, his forehead was covered in sweat.
Pepper followed behind, her face as white as paper. Natasha also arrived, leaning against the doorway, her brows furrowed deeply.
Banner knelt down and performed a quick physiological test on Tony. His heart rate, blood pressure, and organ functions were all normal, even more stable than those of a healthy person.
However, the peak values on the EEG monitor had already exceeded the scale, and the brain activity was more than five times the normal human limit, and it was still rising.
"This can't go on."
Banner's voice was heavy. "His brain is under too much strain. Luckily, Lynn enhanced our bodies beforehand; an ordinary person would have been finished long ago. But if this continues, it won't be long before Tony can't hold on either."
Pepper's lips moved; she wanted to go up and call out to him, but she didn't dare. She had never seen Tony like this before; he seemed like a completely different person.
"Find Lynn."
Natasha made a quick decision, "Only he has the ability to go in and see what's controlling him."
When Lynn arrived, he was still wearing his training clothes, his vest damp with sweat.
He glanced at the scene in the laboratory and his brows furrowed.
Pepper rushed over immediately, her voice trembling with tears. " Lynn, you're finally here. Didn't you say it meant no harm? How did it suddenly turn out like this?"
Banner added from the side, frowning as he stared at the EEG monitor, "He was fine last week, and when I came to talk to him about the data the day before yesterday, everything was normal. It's only been about forty hours since I last saw him."
Lynn didn't answer immediately, but sensed it for another two seconds. The energy surged through Tony's mind, at least three times stronger than before, carrying a panicked urgency, completely unlike his previous lazy and irritating demeanor.
Lynn said in a deep voice, "It probably sensed something and was in a hurry to activate itself, so it didn't care whether Tony's body could withstand it."
Even without getting close, one could sense that the energy in Tony's mind had completely erupted.
No longer the docile glimmer of light it once was, it now flooded Tony's entire brain like a tidal wave, spreading along his nerves to his whole body, controlling his limbs, driving his thoughts, and turning Tony's body into a high-speed computer.
"Everyone, step back and stop arguing."
Lynn walked over, squatted down in front of Tony, and placed his hand on Tony's cold forehead. The yellow light of the Mind Stone and the orange light of the Soul Stone simultaneously seeped into his palm, and a gentle and steady consciousness probed inward along the nerve pathways. The surrounding voices, the hum of the instruments, and the static of the screens all receded into the distance in an instant.
The space of consciousness is not the chaotic sea of energy that existed before.
This time, it was replaced with an old laboratory.
The cement floor was polished to a shine, with a sheet metal workbench in the center and an old-fashioned lathe standing in the corner. Sunlight streamed in through the tall, latticed windows, and dust particles drifted slowly in the beams of light.
Tony sat in the chair by the workbench, his eyes vacant, staring at the empty table in front of him.
There was another person sitting opposite him. He was wearing the same black T-shirt as Tony, and his build was similar, but his face was veiled in a thin mist, making it difficult to see clearly.
But his posture, the rhythm of his fingertips tapping the table, and even the angle of his slightly tilted head were exactly the same as Tony's.
Hearing the noise, the figure raised its head and looked in Lynn's direction.
"You've come."
The voice was Tony's, but the tone was completely different. Calm, with a hint of weariness.
Lynn stood still, not moving forward. "What exactly do you want?"
The figure tilted its head slightly. "Okay, I admit it, I am indeed the Mind Stone. Some people also call me Fragment of Cosmic Awareness. But in this universe, it doesn't matter what you call me."
"You're not from this universe?"
The figure chuckled softly.
"Yes. They drifted for a long time before finally finding this place. Finding him."
It pointed to Tony, who was standing motionless beside it.
Lynn asked, "Why did you choose him?"
The figure said, "I've traveled through many universes. The only ones who can bear to let me stay are Tony from the universe I was born in, and him from this universe. None of the others can."
Lynn sneered after hearing this, standing there with his arms crossed. "That sounds nice. When I came in to talk to you before, you didn't say that. You said you had just woken up and your energy hadn't been contained yet, so you were just staying quietly and wouldn't cause trouble. How long has it been, and you've already taken over your body and are working non-stop? So all that talk you gave me before was just to fool me?"
The figure seemed a little guilty, and lightly tapped the table with its fingertips. "I was originally planning to take it slow."
Its voice lowered, "But I had a feeling a few days ago that it was coming soon! I can't afford to wait any longer. If it finds this place, no one will survive. I have no choice but to race against time."
Lynn's eyes turned cold. "So you're going to forcibly take over his care? Use him like a tool, without feeding or water? If he collapses first, no matter how much time you gain, it won't matter."
The figure immediately shook its head, a hint of helplessness in its voice, "I didn't mean to harm him. There's not enough time. I can feel it getting closer and closer. If I'm not fully awakened before it finds it, not only will I be doomed, but your entire universe will suffer as well."
Who's looking for you?
The figure's voice deepened, "You wouldn't understand even if I told you. All you need to know is that it's something people at your level don't want to face."
Lynn stared at it for a few seconds. It wasn't lying. At least it didn't think it was lying. Emotions at the level of consciousness don't lie; it was indeed afraid, that deep fear hidden beneath its calm.
Lynn asked, "Is it Kang? Or Mister Fantastic? Can't you think of another way? Don't use this suicidal method. Isn't there a faster, safer way?"
The figure remained silent for a long time. Sunlight moved slowly across the ground, and dust particles drifted within the beams of light. After an unknown amount of time, it finally spoke softly, its voice low yet resonant. "Yes. Fusion."
With a buzzing sound, Lynn's consciousness was abruptly jolted back to reality.
He withdrew his hand, stood up, took a half step back, his chest heaving slightly. People immediately surrounded him.
"How are you?" Pepper's voice trembled slightly. "Is Tony alright? What was that thing?"
Lynn rubbed his temples, his expression a little complicated. "I'm sure it meant no harm. It was just an accident."
"So... how is Tony doing now?"
Banner pushed up his glasses, his hands trembling slightly. "He can't keep going at this high intensity for long."
The moment he finished speaking, Tony's dangling fingers twitched slightly. The formula written halfway on the wall stopped at half a line, and the surging stream of code on the screen gradually slowed down, finally coming to a steady stop.
The electronic pen he was holding fell to the ground with a "thud" onto the workbench, where it remained suspended in the shadows.
The entire laboratory was so quiet you could hear someone breathing. A full half minute passed before Tony slowly lifted his eyelids.
His eyes no longer held the cold, mechanical look of before, nor the mocking arrogance of the past.
He said in a hoarse voice, his tone a little low, "I'm fine, don't panic. I talked to him earlier, but I forgot to tell you."
Pepper burst into tears, covering her mouth, tears streaming down her face through her fingers.
Tony was later moved to the medical observation room. Banner gave him a full set of tests, and all his indicators were declining, but he was weak and needed to rest. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and left one after another, leaving only Pepper by his bedside.
When I opened my eyes again, it was already late at night.
Only the bedside lamp was on in the observation room, its warm yellow light casting a halo around it.
Pepper lay by the bed, her hand still gripping his wrist, her hair down, her shoulders rising and falling slightly, her brow furrowed even in her sleep, clearly she had been frightened earlier.
Tony moved his fingers and gently touched the end of her hair.
Pepper woke up abruptly, looked up at him, her eyes red and swollen, still a little groggy from just waking up. She leaned closer, then hesitated to touch him, her voice hoarse. "You're awake? Is anything bothering you?"
"It's alright, don't worry."
Tony shook his head, his voice still a little weak, but with a smile. He looked at Pepper for a long time, then gently wiped away the tears on her cheek. "Sorry, did I scare you?"
It's definitely different now.
With his eyes closed, he could clearly perceive the flow of the entire energy network in the base, which lines had high losses, and which nodes were overloaded, as if he were seeing it with his own eyes.
He quickly went through the previous energy core plan in his mind, and all the anomalies and loopholes became clear instantly, going through the motions with unbelievable smoothness.
A few seconds, just a few seconds.
What used to take the whole team half a month to calculate, now yields the optimal solution in seconds.
It's not just my thinking; my personality seems to have been affected as well.
In the past, seeing the others sweating profusely with anxiety, he would have already started to talk back.
But now, he simply looked at everyone's worried faces and patiently waited for them to calm down.
That evening, he talked with Pepper for a long time.
Pepper leaned against the headboard, Tony held her hand, and slowly recounted to her the bizarre and fantastical things that had sprung up in his mind, things that spanned the universe.
The sky outside the window slowly brightened, and the morning light seeped in through the gaps in the curtains, casting a golden edge on the floor.
Don't worry, I won't let you live in fear anymore.
Tony rubbed his thumb against the back of her hand. "I didn't handle it well before; I just toughed it out. I won't do it again."
Pepper didn't speak, but simply rested her head gently on his shoulder. She knew he was different now. But she also knew he was still Tony.
The next afternoon, in the conference room. Lynn, Banner, Phastos, Natasha, Ivan, and Harley and Peter standing at the far end, looking a bit reserved, were all there. When Tony walked in, everyone instinctively stopped talking and looked at him.
He looked no different than before, still wearing that black T-shirt, still with that somewhat nonchalant air.
But her eyes were different. They were deep, bright, yet steady, and when they fell on someone, they gave that feeling of inexplicable peace.
"Please sit down."
Tony waved his hand, walked to the head of the table, and without further ado, got straight to the point. "I called everyone here today for one thing. The matter of the Mind Stone is considered settled. I will gradually organize the technology it brought with it and apply it to the base and the armor."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the crowd before settling on Harley beside him. "Also, starting today, Harley Chinaa officially joins the field operations unit, codename— Iron Lad."
There was a slight movement in the meeting room. Harley looked up abruptly, his eyes wide, as if he hadn't expected it to happen so quickly. "Don't get excited."
Tony smiled, his tone much gentler than before. "Take over the routine patrols, low-level crises, and standard technical support for now. I'll need to focus on more complex matters from now on, so you'll have to share the day-to-day workload."
"You have to take things one step at a time. Learn to walk before you learn to run. I told you that before, and it still stands."
Harley stood there, opened his mouth, and after a long pause, only managed to stammer out, "I... I promise I'll do it!"
Tony nodded, a hint of expectation in his eyes.
"I know you'll do well."
The meeting didn't last long.
As the meeting adjourned, everyone gradually left. Lynn was the last to walk, and he paused briefly as he passed Tony.
How are you feeling?
Tony looked up at him and smiled. "I'm fine, nothing unusual. It's just that my usual chatterbox isn't talking anymore, it's a little strange."
Lynn smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Say something if you need anything, don't shoulder it all alone anymore."
"Know."