Coulson called the next morning.
Lynn was sitting on the couch watching the morning news projected by JARVIS. On the coffee table sat a half-finished cup of coffee and a sandwich with two bites taken out of it. Coulson's name popped up on the screen. He answered, but before he could say "good morning," the other end spoke first.
"You want Natasha as your liaison. No problem. But what do you want her to do? Surely not babysit you." Coulson's tone was as gentle and unhurried as ever, but Lynn heard a trace of resignation, as though he had spent an entire day being worn down before barely managing to stomach the request.
Lynn set his coffee cup on the table and gave it some serious thought. "Housekeeper."
The other end went silent for about two seconds. "...What?"
"Housekeeper! You're having her work as Tony's assistant anyway. She might as well work as my housekeeper. There's essentially no difference between an assistant and a housekeeper. It's just a different title. Actually, it would be best if you could let her go. I'd hire her directly! I could even pay her salary myself. Too bad... you probably won't let her leave."
He leaned against the back of the couch, propped his legs up and swung them a little, then added, in a light tone that did nothing to disguise the content, "Honestly, I'm actually looking forward to S.H.I.E.L.D. going under. Then I can poach her without any guilt."
The silence on the other end lasted longer this time. When Coulson spoke again, little of that gentleness remained, as though he were relying on his last scrap of professionalism to keep from losing his temper. "Natasha is wrapping up her current work. She'll contact you in a couple of days. If that's all, I'm hanging up. Even if it isn't, I'm hanging up. I don't want to talk to you right now."
The call ended. Lynn lowered the phone from his ear, stared at the words "call ended" on the screen, and muttered, "Why is everyone so boring? Can't take a joke." He put the phone on the coffee table, picked up his coffee and drained the last mouthful, then stood and headed for the elevator. JARVIS told him Tony was in the top-floor lab.
The underground lab was still the same interplay of cold white lighting and holographic screens. Tony stood at the central workbench, swiping through several old design drawings on the holographic display. Banner sat at a workbench in the corner, holding an experiment log and occasionally looking up to exchange a few words about parameters with Tony.
Hearing footsteps, Tony pushed the holographic display aside and turned around. "What brings you here at this hour? Need something?"
"What? Tired of being all lovey-dovey with Ivan after barely a couple of days?" Lynn walked over to the workbench and leaned against the edge of a CNC machine, both hands in his pockets. "Never mind that. There's something I wanted to ask you."
Tony leaned back in his chair, speechless. "Ivan said he still preferred being alone and complained that I was interrupting his research. He ran off to the cave lab to go into seclusion. Whatever it is, just say it."
"You know my ability. Suppose I could record an organ's microscopic arrangement and all its information in full, and then you grew some living tissue from my stem cells to use as raw material..."
Lynn tapped a finger lightly against the edge of the workbench. "Could I modify it into an organ compatible with me? A complete, fully functioning one."
Tony did not answer immediately. He set the stylus in his hand on the workbench, leaned back slightly, and clasped his hands in front of his knees. Lynn knew that posture well. Tony was thinking. Several drawings were still slowly rotating on the holographic screen, but Tony was no longer looking at them.
"I'm only discussing technical feasibility here. You don't need to process all the information for an entire organ at once. You can do it in batches, by region, over time. Modify one part today, let the tissue stabilize, then modify the next part tomorrow. As long as you have enough time."
Tony took his hands off his knees and raised one finger. "Processing speed doesn't need to be considered. JARVIS has been monitoring your nervous system data during this time, and your brain's processing speed is increasing every day. But capacity is still the bottleneck. You've already solved the capacity expansion problem by deleting short-term memories. So we can leave processing out of consideration for now."
He raised a second finger, his speech quickening as he clearly shared an increasingly interesting technical extrapolation. "That leaves just one variable. Can you record the entire microscopic structure of a complete organ with one hundred percent accuracy? The arrangement of every cell, the course of every blood vessel, the distribution of every nerve ending, the position of every mitochondrion. This isn't medical school anatomy class. This is a subcellular level of information. If you can collect information at that level, the probability of realizing your idea definitely won't be low. If it's only one or two organs, the success rate could be even higher."
Tony lowered his two fingers and clasped his hands again. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly into a classic Stark teasing smile. "But what's this? Finally realized your IQ is your weak point and decided to get yourself a new brain?"
Lynn did not take the bait. He lowered his hand from the edge of the workbench and straightened up.
Tony's smile slowly faded too, not out of embarrassment, but because he could see that Lynn's usual nonchalance was absent from his face.
"Tony. I need your help."
Tony's expression froze for an instant. The sort of situation he was accustomed to handling with arrogance and teasing had suddenly been broken open by Lynn's sincerity. He looked down and adjusted his cuffs, then raised a hand to straighten his collar, muttering, "Don't do that. It's gross. Just tell me what you need."
"I'd like to ask you to build the tissue bud cultivation device I just mentioned. A device that can grow tissue buds and keep them alive until I've completely changed their properties."
Tony turned back, his eyebrows lifting slightly.
"I can take my time learning organ structures. I can take my time collecting the information too. But the device itself is beyond me. My ability can't solve those things. I need your technology." Lynn paused and looked at Tony seriously. "I know this thing won't have a short development cycle, and it won't be cheap. I admit I have selfish reasons, but it would also give us an extra safeguard."
The lab fell quiet for a moment. Several old reactor designs continued rotating silently on the holographic screen. In the corner, Banner put down his experiment log and quietly watched the scene. Tony looked at Lynn's face. There was no goofy grin, no joking around, not even his usual "I'm just mentioning it in passing" nonchalance.
"All right. I'll do it," he said crisply.
Lynn finally failed to hold back his grin. He stepped forward and hugged Tony, practically bouncing as he shouted, "I knew you'd say yes!!!" Tony was shaken back and forth twice, the disgust on his face rising from seven out of ten to a full ten, but he still gave Lynn a perfunctory pat on the back.
"Okay, okay, okay... let go first. This is disgusting. I just changed my shirt! Don't get it dirty." Tony pried Lynn's arms off his shoulders, stepped back twice, and straightened his collar, which had been pulled askew. "Don't expect me to collect the organ information for you too. Take your time learning that yourself."
"Heh heh." Lynn let go and stepped back, wearing that classic Lynn goofy grin, with ten percent sincerity mixed into the flippancy. "Your boy's happy life from here on out is counting on you."
Before Tony could retort, Lynn had already turned and strode toward the elevator. His steps were considerably lighter than when he had arrived. The elevator doors closed, and before long, JARVIS's voice came from the ceiling.
"Sir, is Mr. Lynn all right? He was grinning foolishly in the corridor for at least half a minute just now."
Tony turned back to the holographic screen, the corners of his mouth curving up slightly. "JARVIS, contact Dr. Helen Cho for me. The Regeneration Cradle project."