Batman Incident (Complete)

"You mean there’s something wrong with the reactor in Mr. Stark’s chest?" Peter looked at Yinsen and asked.

"Peter, you’re very smart…" Yinsen put an arm around Peter’s shoulders, turned to him, and said, "Even if you thought about it for just a moment, you should understand how dangerous it is to embed an energy source that works on this principle inside someone’s body."

Peter asked worriedly, "Then what do we do? We should be able to develop something new to replace that thing, right?"

"Of course. Tony is a genius. If he truly puts his mind to doing something, he can certainly succeed. But what if… he doesn’t want to?"

"Why wouldn’t he? This concerns his own life…" Peter stopped as soon as he said that. Yinsen said, "You’ve probably noticed it too. Tony’s state of mind is somewhat negative right now. He’s always thinking about dying like a hero, rather than figuring out how to live well."

Peter thought of Stark flying toward Highland Tower without hesitation. No matter how Peter had tried to persuade him, Stark simply would not stop. Aside from bravery, that posture had indeed carried the air of rushing toward death.

Peter sighed, sat down in a chair, and rested one arm on the table. "I once heard Doctor Schiller talk about what Mr. Stark has gone through lately. Honestly, it really would make anyone sad."

"What do you think I should do?" Peter spread his hands. "I want to help him, but I probably can’t be much help technically."

"Stark doesn’t need anyone’s help with technology. I think you could try talking him into it."

Leaning against the workbench beside Peter, Yinsen looked at him and said, "Haven’t you noticed? Stark treats you differently. We’re his friends, but there are some things he never listens to his friends about. You might be different."

After Yinsen left, Peter remained alone in the laboratory, staring blankly into space. He began recalling every little moment he had spent with Stark.

At the very beginning, atop the New York TV Tower, Stark had told him about his experiences in Afghanistan.

That day, when they had still been strangers, Stark had told Peter that being a hero hurt.

Only later did Peter realize that Stark was not someone who complained about pain easily.

Peter could imagine that embedding a reactor in his own chest, no matter how much power it produced or how powerful an armored suit it could drive, could not possibly feel good for the owner of that body.

The laboratory lights were dim, with only the glow of the instruments interweaving across the floor. Spider-Man was not tireless. In such an environment, after fighting all day, Peter felt exhausted and sleepy as well.

In his haze, he seemed to see Stark sitting on the floor in front of him, his back against the workbench, holding a reactor model in his hand.

Peter remembered asking Stark what the model that had always sat on his desk was. Stark had remained silent for a long time, but in the end, he had only spoken one name—Howard.

Peter had vaguely heard that name from others. Steve had told him that Howard had once been his old comrade-in-arms. He had been a genius too, but also a playboy.

Natasha seemed to have mentioned the name as well, though she had not said anything good about him. Nick had also referred to Stark’s father now and then, but had never given Peter any impression that stuck with him.

Just like his own father, Peter thought. All he had ever heard from Uncle Ben and Aunt May was a name and some vague descriptions.

Father, Peter thought. That word was truly so distant to him.

Peter grew sleepier and sleepier. It felt like a dream. He saw Stark set down the model, then close his eyes as though he had fallen asleep.

On every such late night, in the empty laboratory of Stark Tower, Iron Man truly hurt as well.

He always said Howard was not the person he should think of when he was in pain, but on every such late night, who Iron Man truly thought of was something no one knew.

In Peter’s deeper dream, he dreamed that Stark had become his father.

There was no advanced equipment from Stark Industries in that dream, no luxurious surroundings, none of the comforts of a wealthy family that Peter could not even imagine.

His childhood was still trapped in that old house. In his memories, there were still half-worn clothes, toys that could not fill a single box, and storybooks whose pages had been thumbed into creases.

But one thing was different: he had a father, a father who took apart toy cars with him and used building-block pieces to make all kinds of machines.

Together, they used marbles as planets and arranged a map of the Solar System across the somewhat worn floor. In the cramped room, the setting sun shone over those simple toys. The tall Stark and young Peter stared intently at the glass marbles on the floor, and the father and son seemed to possess the entire universe.

Their appearances began to change. Peter saw Stark become Howard, while he himself became a young Stark.

Howard gently nudged the marbles, and the mysteries of countless universes flowed from his mouth. The glass spheres began to glow brighter and brighter, until their light became dazzling.

Peter saw a father and son standing hand in hand above Earth. Every planet in the Solar System moved at their command. Even the sun obeyed the father’s order and dimmed its light. The planets kept turning, and countless lights blinked.

Mars, Venus, Jupiter…

Knowledge that was quite profound to a child echoed through the silent universe.

Before Peter’s consciousness sank into darkness, the last image he remembered was Stark handing him the first-generation Spider-Man suit. Stark’s faceplate lifted, and those brown eyes beneath the sunlight were as rich as honey on the verge of melting.

Peter was certain that he had seen two completely different emotions in those eyes: the weathered weariness of a father and the innocence of a child.

The night grew deeper and deeper. Stark lay in the hospital bed, truly exhausted, yet the body clock he had developed from years of staying up late kept him from falling asleep.

Just as he began to feel uncomfortable and wanted to turn over, he heard the doorknob move softly. He turned his head with difficulty and saw the door open a crack. Light from outside spilled in as Peter squeezed through the gap and gently shut the door behind him.

The moment Peter turned around, he saw Stark’s slightly shining eyes fixed on him. He seemed startled, then said awkwardly, "Uh… Mr. Stark, you’re still awake? I thought…"

"What are you doing here at this hour? Aren’t you going to sleep?"

"I… I have a little insomnia. I just couldn’t sleep. Uh, actually, I already did sleep, but then I suddenly woke up…"

"Has anyone ever told you that whenever you lie, you always talk in circles?"

Peter said dejectedly, "I knew it. I’ve never been good at lying since I was little."

"So why did you come? If it’s some question about the experiment, we can talk tomorrow morning."

"I was almost asleep." Stark turned over, facing away from Peter to show that he intended to sleep.

Peter lowered his head. He did not turn on the light, merely walked over to the chair beside the hospital bed and sat down. He remained silent for so long that he thought Stark had already fallen asleep.

Then, as if possessed, he asked, "Mr. Stark, could you tell me about your father?"

Stark remained silent. Peter felt that he was being unreasonable, but he still said, "I don’t mean anything by it. It’s just… you know, I never met my father. When people hear about my background, they stop bringing up their parents around me. Even Gwen is the same…"

Stark’s curled-up figure shifted slightly on the hospital bed. He heard Peter say, "Well, actually, I just had a dream, so I couldn’t sleep. I dreamed about my father, though maybe it wasn’t really my father. After all, I’ve never seen him, right?"

At last, after a long silence, Stark sighed. He turned back over and stared straight at the ceiling. "Howard was a drunk. He got blind drunk every day."

"When he was drunk, he cursed everything. He was a rude bastard. When he was sober, the thing he said to me most often was, ‘You don’t understand anything.’"

"Of course I didn’t understand anything. I was only a few years old then."

"I was naturally interested in cars, and I liked tinkering with metal parts. But whenever I made something, he never praised me. He would only say it was a pile of junk."

"Alcohol fried that brain he was so proud of." Stark snorted. "To the point that in the final stage of his life, he didn’t come up with a single decent invention."

"Look at me now! Stark Industries is better than ever, and I’ve created more inventions capable of changing the world!"

"He was wrong, absurdly wrong. Little Stark didn’t understand nothing. The one who understood nothing was him, Howard Stark…"

Seeing Peter’s silence, Stark turned his face away and said, "You didn’t hear the story you wanted, did you? What did you think you’d hear? That we were a loving father and son? Or that he taught me knowledge, personally teaching me inventions and creation from childhood?"

Stark lowered his gaze. Whenever he half-closed his eyes, his long lashes cast thick shadows over those brown irises.

Peter lowered his head, clasped his hands together beneath his chin, and said, "Before this, I’d never dreamed about my father. I’d never even thought of him, because I never met him. There’s nothing about him in my memories. I couldn’t even dream of him."

Stark glanced at him and said, "All right. Maybe there were some decent moments. Maybe… a very, very long time ago, so long ago that I can barely remember, I remember us standing in front of a workbench together too. We… I don’t remember exactly what we were doing, but there was a time like that…"

Stark turned his head to look at Peter, but he did not see any sadness on Peter’s face. There was no loneliness or grief in Peter’s still-youthful features, not as Stark had imagined.

Stark thought that perhaps this was normal. Peter had lived this way for more than a decade. In his life, his uncle had played the role of a father, though perhaps only partly.

Ben Parker was an ordinary man. He had done everything he could to pass his finest qualities—strength and kindness—on to Peter.

But Peter was a genius. Stark understood that better than anyone. What geniuses needed was resonance, exchanges with worthy equals, and the collision of sparks of thought.

When Peter and Stark looked at each other, they both thought of the same thing: it truly proved that old saying—geniuses were always lonely.

Stark saw Peter’s gaze fall on the reactor in his chest. He laid his head flat again and continued staring at the ceiling, watching the light flashing past outside the window leave all kinds of shapes across it.

"If the problem with that reactor isn’t solved, you’ll die, right?" Peter asked him. "That’s what Yinsen told me."

"They always make a mountain out of a molehill. I’m actually fine, I…"

"You don’t know how I felt when I saw the image of your death in my Spider-Sense," Peter said.

Stark heard a faint tremor in his voice.

"…The laboratory equipment in Stark Tower is advanced. I really like it here, and the decor is luxurious too. I’ve never lived anywhere this nice."

"But more importantly, no one ever taught me about making equipment before, or experimental methods. No one ever stood with me at a workbench, assembled those parts with me, then tested the finished products together…"

"When my Spider-Sense told me that all of this was about to end, I simply couldn’t accept it…" Peter’s voice sank lower and lower. His final syllable fell to the floor, as though it would shatter at the slightest touch.

Stark closed his eyes. His Adam’s apple trembled as he said, "What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you myself that in one year and three months, perhaps all of this will be over?"

In Stark’s dark field of vision, he began recalling those days so distant that he could barely remember them, searching for the faintest fragments in his memories.

Trying to remember the good times he had once shared with Howard.

That very night, as he stumbled through pulling those fragments of memory from the cracks, Stark finally admitted that he missed them.

Tonight, his pain was stronger than on any other night, and so that longing was stronger too.

Howard was not the person he should think of when he was in pain, because those good times would never come again, because his father was dead.

Only then did Stark realize that when he had changed from a son into a father, he had finally understood that rather than have his child think of him on painful nights, any father would rather live a long, long life and ensure that the good times never ended.

Stark felt that his desire to live had never been stronger—he did not want to become Howard, the person he despised most.

He did not want to use an abruptly ended death to leave his child reminded for the rest of his life that those good times were gone forever and would never return.

Then his child would be forced to forget, to tear apart the happiest and brightest days of his life, hide them in the farthest corner of his memories, and deny that they had ever existed.

In that silent night, no one saw the sleeping Stark’s fingers, marked by the lines of no longer-young skin, clench the railing of the hospital bed, just as they had gripped that model on countless late nights.

Nor did anyone know that in Peter’s next dream, he saw that unfamiliar night sky again. Those lingering memories became clear in the dream. He heard two gunshots and saw a scattered string of pearls.

In his hazy dream, the previous dream seemed to return. Peter saw another world, another father and son, walking hand in hand slowly toward the universe.

He saw those good times hidden behind that black tide, times that perhaps even the bat itself could no longer find.

Batman Incident (Complete)

Today’s ten thousand words are here!

The first Marvel major event is finished! If you have any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments. The author will read them all!

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