The Good Man’s War (Part One)

Amid a burst of clamor and flashing cameras, Stark stood before the press podium in a suit. The moment he settled into place, more than a dozen microphones were thrust toward him. He pressed one hand downward, signaling for them to calm down.

"Hello, Mr. Stark. I’m Brock, a special correspondent for Global Daily. Mr. Stark, how do you respond to the accusations and criticism that you are disregarding human lives by ending your medical cooperation with the military?"

"You need to get one thing straight." Stark pointed at the male reporter.

"I wasn’t the one who shut down the cooperation. Besides, with that limited brain capacity of yours, I’m afraid you can’t understand the difference between medical equipment technology intended for industrial use and the ordinary medical technology used in hospitals…"

Though Stark appeared to be in decent spirits, the heavy dark circles beneath his eyes exposed the fact that he had not been sleeping well lately.

Pepper was extremely busy. The smooth operation of the massive Stark Industries depended entirely on her, and ever since Stark had fallen out with the military, he had been facing all kinds of pressure from the outside world.

Like this press conference. Stark swept his gaze downward and knew that at least half the people here had taken the military’s money. Like the reporter named Brock just now, they would raise all sorts of tricky questions in an attempt to dump all the responsibility onto him.

The reporter continued, "Stark Industries is clearly far less proactive than the Osborn Group in researching medical technology. Does that mean you care less about the development of human medicine than the leaders of the Osborn Group do? Or perhaps you simply lack the compassion to care about patients suffering from illness?"

Stark glanced at his press badge. Fine, it seemed this Eddie Brock had come solely to pick a fight.

"I don’t want to waste time arguing with you about this. You’d be better off asking the Army General about the shutdown of the medical technology cooperation project."

"What about Stark Industries’ weapons? After those weapons are used in war, you refuse to develop more medical technology to save soldiers injured on the battlefield. Does that mean Stark Industries only cares about profiting from war and is a traitorous profiteer that disregards civilian casualties?"

The reporter named Brock spoke incredibly quickly, firing off a long string of words like a machine gun. Every angle and every question struck at the heart of the matter. Stark thought that if the military had not handed him a script, he really could have been called a genius reporter.

When someone wanted to find fault with you, no matter what you did, they would criticize you from every possible direction.

The next day, major New York newspapers were flooded with negative reports about Stark, with the fiercest condemnation coming from Brock, the star reporter of the Global Times.

Stark knew this was the military continually pressuring him to make him yield. But he also knew he had to withstand that pressure, or Pepper would be left isolated and helpless.

Everything that had happened lately had made him think a great deal about love, friendship, and family.

Iron Man never retreated, but that was not only for his lofty ideals. It was also for everyone he loved.

The military’s media campaign was highly effective. While suppressing Stark Industries’ reputation, they were also praising the Osborn Group. The Osborn Group had always been better at biotechnology and Medical Technology, while Stark Industries was more skilled in military manufacturing.

That became another excuse for the media to attack Stark Industries’ reputation. They painted Stark Industries as an inhumane evil organization and condemned it as a cancer on humanity, as though the world would become completely peaceful if Stark Industries disappeared.

It would have been impossible to say that the overwhelming negative coverage had no effect on Stark. If those reports had truly been nothing but baseless gossip, he might not have felt such immense pressure.

The problem was that Stark himself knew the weapons he sold had hurt many people. The media was not entirely wrong. Stark Industries had risen through war in the first place.

Stark, who had only recently emerged from an extremely negative emotional state, sank into depression once more.

Meanwhile, during Peter’s sewer exploration, he once again found signs of human activity in the sewers.

Ever since discovering those clues last time, Peter had kept watch. He carefully inspected every maintenance point he passed, and then he discovered that the sewer freak had lived in more than one base. It was as though he scurried through the sewers every day. Five or six maintenance points within the same district bore traces of his presence.

Following those traces, Peter drew closer and closer to The Truth. He guessed that this freak must have a real base somewhere at the intersection of those activity trails.

As his sewer map became more complete, Peter finally found the likely convergence point. It was near a reservoir in the sewers. Four passageways extended from there, each corresponding to a district with traces of activity. The freak might have built a base there and set up temporary hideouts in several other districts.

That was not strange. Not everyone had Spider-Man’s stamina and could run through half a city district’s sewers in a single day.

The sewers were huge, and the routes were long. There were no manholes near the reservoir that led to the surface. He had to establish rest stops between the manholes and the reservoir, or he would never be able to cover such a long distance without exhausting himself to death.

Peter keenly noticed that as well. It meant the freak active in the sewers was most likely just an ordinary person. He could not walk several kilometers at once through such damp, dark sewers, so he had needed to establish multiple lounges throughout the maze-like tunnels.

That gave Peter confidence. As long as the other side was an ordinary person, if he caught him off guard, he would definitely be able to catch him.

One night, Peter crept into the reservoir base. He knew the freak definitely would not be there at that hour, so he pried open the door to the maintenance station near the reservoir.

Upon entering the maintenance station, Peter was startled. It was filled with bottles and jars, along with plenty of crude-looking equipment.

Peter picked up one of the bottles and took a look. It seemed to contain biological tissue samples. Who was this person? Why was he conducting experiments down here?

He stepped over the messily piled boxes on the floor and went farther inside. What he found was even more alarming: there were numerous biological specimens, looking especially horrifying beneath the gloomy lights.

It was practically the base of a mad scientist.

This person was very cautious. Other than the experimental materials, he had left behind no data or documents. Peter searched the place but found no information related to his identity.

A mad scientist conducting biological experiments in New York’s sewers? Peter gradually formed an image of an evil figure in his mind.

He could not let him continue like this. New York’s sewers were rarely visited, but they were also the city’s lifeline. If someone dumped dangerous experimental waste into them, all of New York could be in danger.

With that thought, Peter walked to the doorway and took down the waste cardboard boxes stacked high up where they had remained relatively dry. Then he tore the cardboard apart, lit it on fire, and planned to burn the base down completely.

Though the sewers were damp, the maintenance station was fairly dry. Once the fire caught, thick black smoke soon filled the entire room. Peter shut the maintenance station door and watched the flames devour all the experimental equipment inside.

He let out a sigh of relief. Luckily, he had found it early. If that mad scientist had really developed some poison or toxic gas, it would have been too late.

After leaving the sewers, Peter was still uneasy. He felt that even though he had destroyed one base, the mad scientist might have others. He needed to keep a close eye on the place over the next few days and catch him if possible.

Over the next few days, Peter interned at Stark Industries during the day and frequently entered and exited the sewers at night. Since that base had been destroyed, the signs of life in the sewers seemed to have vanished as well.

It seemed that mad freak had given up.

Peter felt somewhat relieved. His internship had not been going very smoothly lately either. He found Mr. Stark extremely dispirited. Stark had even stopped conducting experiments, spending his days smoking and drinking heavily. Sometimes he got so drunk that he collapsed on the laboratory floor, and Peter had to help him up.

Peter had read the negative reports about Stark, but he did not believe a single word. He thought it was all smearing. Iron Man was a superhero. He had saved many people. He was not the heartless devil those media outlets described.

Peter wanted to turn the situation around, but he had no good ideas. He had never been good at this sort of thing, and he did not even dare call those news outlets to challenge their reports. So he came to the psychological clinic again. He felt Doctor Schiller surely had a way to reverse public opinion.

Schiller had recently been busy finding food for the Symbiote.

When Peter arrived at the psychological clinic, Schiller was bandaging Pikachu. While Schiller had been cooking, Pikachu had been bouncing around on the kitchen counter. His tail had fallen into the pot, scorching off a large patch of fur. He was now lying pitifully on the table as Schiller treated him.

Peter said, "Hey! Am I interrupting? I can come back tomorrow…"

"It’s fine. Come in. I don’t have anything important to do right now."

Peter walked in and vigorously rubbed Pikachu’s face. Pikachu wrinkled his nose and tried to dodge, but Schiller was still holding his tail. When he jumped to the side, his tail was yanked hard, and he fell back onto the tabletop, knocking over a whole pile of cups with a clatter.

"Behave," Schiller said. "Otherwise, your tail will stay bald forever."

Peter sat in the chair beside him. "Doctor, have you seen those reports lately? Those reporters really can spin nonsense. Someone even swore that he saw Mr. Stark selling weapons to terrorists, and described their negotiations as if he had personally witnessed every detail…"

"That’s a reporter’s bread and butter. If they did not have that skill, they would have no business in New York’s journalism circles."

"But they’re completely making things up!" Peter slammed his fist onto the table. "Mr. Stark isn’t that kind of person!"

"Is that so? If it were truly all fabrication, Stark’s attitude should be the same as yours. You are furious because your friend has been slandered. The person being slandered should be even angrier."

"Well…" Peter was left speechless, because Schiller made sense. Back when Thompson made up rumors about him at school, he had nearly exploded with rage. But why was Mr. Stark not angry? Why was he not coming forward to refute them?

Even Peter, despite not being particularly articulate, had tried very hard to explain those rumors to the people around him.

"Why are you so certain that what you believe is right?" Schiller asked.

"Because I… But the Stark I know really isn’t like that!"

"Perhaps you have only seen one side of him?"

"But…" Peter clenched his fists. "Doctor, isn’t Mr. Stark your friend too? Do you think he really is the kind of person those reports describe?"

Schiller shook his head. "The Stark I see may be completely different from the Stark you see, just as a thousand people see a thousand Hamlets."

"One’s view of something always changes depending on one’s position. A bad person may see a good person as bad, while a bad person may see another bad person as good."

Peter struck one palm with his fist. "I believe those reporters and the Osborn Group are definitely bad people seeing bad people as good, because they’re all birds of a feather and praise each other. And when those reporters look at Mr. Stark, it must be because bad people can’t stand good people…"

"How do you define good people and bad people?"

"Uh… People who do good things are good people, and people who do bad things are bad people?"

"And how do you define good things and bad things?"

"At the very least… they have to match the facts. You can’t spread rumors, and you can’t break laws or regulations… And morality. You have to follow moral boundaries too. Then it counts as a good thing, right?"

"Do you think swinging around New York’s skies every day does not violate traffic safety laws?"

"But I do that in order to… Fine, I think my intentions are good, and the results are good too. I save people, right? So breaking a few rules does not really matter, does it…"

Schiller shook his head. "One day, you will have to understand that there are no completely good people in this world, nor are there completely bad people. This world is full of bad deeds with good intentions and good outcomes, and it is equally full of good deeds with utterly terrible intentions and outcomes."

Peter scratched his head. "That sounds like a tongue twister."

"If you always observe this world with a simplistic black-and-white mindset, then one day you will find that all that black and white has blended into a hazy gray."

"But good deeds are good deeds, and bad deeds are bad deeds. I only want to help more people and do more good things," Peter said.

When Peter left Schiller’s place, his head was still a little dizzy. Schiller’s whole set of metaphors about good deeds and bad deeds had left him somewhat muddled. Peter’s thinking was simple: he was a good person, so he had to do good deeds and stop bad people from doing bad deeds.

What was so hard to understand about that? Wasn’t that a very simple truth?

Peter shook his head. He felt he was right, and if everyone thought like he did, the world would surely become much better. There was so much crime only because bad people refused to stop doing bad things. If everyone were a good person, then wouldn’t there be no more crime in the world?

After walking and thinking for a while, Peter checked his watch and found that it was still early. He had already asked the leader of his internship group for leave, and if he went home now, his uncle and aunt would surely not be there either.

After thinking it over, Peter decided to continue his superhero work.

He found the nearest manhole and climbed down. To be safe, he felt he should patrol the sewers more often and stop any dangerous actions that Frankenstein’s monster might attempt.

But the moment Peter entered the sewers that day, he felt a chill run down his spine. The feeling had not reached the level of Spider-Sense, but it still made his back go cold.

Left with no choice, he opened his backpack and put on the Spider-Man suit. Then he hid the backpack in a corner and continued deeper into the sewers as Spider-Man.

The ever-present sense of danger kept Spider-Man from running as quickly as before. Instead, he moved forward at a brisk walk. As he drew closer and closer to the central reservoir of this district, Spider-Sense began to buzz faintly. He felt uneasy, but could not find the source of that unease.

After walking a little farther, he suddenly heard a faint hissing sound ahead, accompanied by a scraping noise like metal dragging across stone.

Spider-Sense suddenly flared. Spider-Man rolled rapidly to one side, dodging a chunk of broken stone slab hurled at him.

Amid flying stone chips, Peter looked up and saw a massive figure emerge at the end of the dark sewer.

It was a colossal creature at least four or five meters tall. As it came closer, Peter used the weak sewer lights to make it out. It was an upright lizard, an enormous Lizardman so large that he nearly filled the entire sewer passage.

Spider-Man swallowed. Compared to this Lizardman, his own small frame seemed incredibly thin and tiny.

But the monster had clearly spotted him. Peter rapidly fled along the walls, while the huge Lizardman chased relentlessly behind him. Every step he took made the sewer floor tremble.

The Lizardman let out a thunderous roar and grabbed slabs of stone to hurl at Spider-Man. Spider-Man was faster than him, but not by much. More importantly, the stone slabs forced him to dodge left and right, seriously slowing him down.

Webbing was not very useful in the sewers. Peter could only rely on his legs to run, and creatures that moved with both feet on the ground had a weakness: once their center of gravity shifted, they could easily fall.

To dodge a stone slab, Peter rolled right, but a fragment of another rock immediately knocked him down from the left. The instant he lost his balance, he rolled several times across the ground. The massive Lizardman grabbed his leg and threw him away.

Peter slammed into the sewer wall. He coughed desperately twice and tasted something metallic and sweet in his throat.

He struggled to his feet, intending to prepare for the hard battle that might follow. But suddenly, the Lizardman shook his head as though he was not entirely lucid. Then he stopped paying attention to Peter, turned, and ran off in another direction.