Deep down, Stark knew himself that occasionally he found Peter a bit annoying,
The kid was good at rambling under any circumstances, in any environnt. Whether it was to lighten the mood or simply empty chatter, all of his talk without significant information was just a little noisy in normal tis, nothing major.
But today, Stark had never hated Spiderman's rambling more, the endless conversation records burying their relevance deep underground, unreachably high when laid on the ground.
Stark scrolled through one record after the other for a full three minutes, not finding any useful information.
What was even more frustrating was that while he could open a speaker's profile page, most Spidern just had a selfie with scissor fingers as their profile picture, and their bios were all garbage talk.
This ant Stark had to attentively look for differences in each person's avatar, even making guesses based on the facial contours shown by the mask to determine if he was the person he was looking for. This was like a ga of spot the difference at hell difficulty level, with tornt as its selling point.
The order of search results was not chronological, but random. Stark clicked through more than a dozen randomly and found 5 different Peter Parkers. If he kept on like this, he might never find the Peter Parker he was looking for.
Stark put down his phone and rubbed his forehead hard. He thought he had found a shortcut, only to stumble upon a longer detour.
He wanted to ask in the Spiderman group, but he didn't know how to describe his Spiderman from his cosmos.
There were so many Peter Parkers here, all looking alike with similar abilities. Stark didn't know what distinguished his version of the cosmos, which naturally made it impossible for people to comprehend what he was trying to express.
A hint of regret surfaced in Stark's heart. Why was there such a place in the cosmos that he didn't know about? Why did he have absolutely no idea where his cosmos was positioned in the vast sea of stars? Why had he never dealt with matters like this for all these years?
Stark felt slightly defeated, like the frog that had been staring at the sky from the bottom of a well, or a small town young man stepping into a big city for the first ti. His confidence and curiosity had morphed into a gap in identity and vision, making him feel extraordinarily weary.
Then he thought, was his coming to find Peter and urging Peter to return a good thing?
Maybe he should just roll back to his rural hotown like the fathers of every child who ca to the city for education, and not add trouble to the children who found a new life in the big city.
Unstoppable sadness spread in his heart, and Stark felt a kind of sha constantly torturing him. He was clearly just a clueless young man from a rural universe, yet he had taken the place of an important figure in the big city.
If this were a TV drama, he would have to ss up sothing, trip up the big shot, or even ss everything up and let others clean up the ss for him.
The obsession of finding Peter, perhaps Peter didn't need it at all. He was living quite well here, prosperous, stable, and happy, able to showcase his talents on the interstellar stage, instead of going back to punch Universal terrorists.
Stark closed his eyes tightly, his drooping mouth corners trembling slightly, and his furrowed brows revealing his pain.
So what if he took the place of Iron Man in this world? Could he provide his child with this kind of stable and prosperous environnt? Could he allow his own Peter to play and laugh without any worries, just like those two young girls?
Iron Man was undoubtedly a pessimist. He knew very well that he was just holding onto driftwood in a flood that was destined to destroy the world, for just a little longer.
But now, a big ship had sailed in front of him, making him realize that even if the flood was to swallow everything, even if the universe was dood to be destroyed, and everything was to end, people had built a Noah's Ark to save people, and also to give those who were destined to die, a period of worry-free and beautiful mories.
Iron Man felt the old wound in his chest that hadn't hurt for a long ti starting to feel off. Either it was an old wound recurring, or it was his heart crying.
After the deep emotion and ntal fatigue allowed Stark to gradually drift into sleep, he dreamt of a badly wounded eagle plunging towards death.
But just before the eagle broke its wings, a gust of wind lifted its powerless wings and carried it towards an unknown direction. On the horizon, there was only the shadow of a magnificent and prosperous city.
"Tony... Tony, Tony, wake up!"
A voice sounded in Stark's ears. He slowly woke up and found a familiar face in his hazy sight. The next second, Stark jumped up in shock.
The one in front of him was another Tony Stark.
"You!"
Stark spoke a single syllable, then realized his tone was wrong, so he opened his mouth to say: "I..."
He wanted to explain, but didn't know where to start. Being Tony Stark himself, he knew that had an imposter broke into his house, pretending to be him, and fell asleep in the lab, the real him would not give a chance to explain, but instead put on his battlesuit and prepare his repulsors.
Stark's muscles tensed, and his mind started racing, considering the phrasing of his explanation. Right now, he had no battlesuit, so he couldn't fight. He needed to find a way to pacify the other one.
Before he could start speaking, the other Stark across from him started, "Tony, Tony! How could you fall asleep? Do you even have the ti to sleep? Wake up, those magicians are stepping on our heads!!!"
The other Stark in a black shirt and tie, sans glasses, looked like he had just left a eting room. He was pacing around the room and grumbling, "That master swordsman from the last conference... Kamar-Taj called her Swordman, she even made advances in greenhouse cultivation. What's she's doing? A swordsman who quit swordsmanship for farming!"
The black-clad Stark clenched his teeth and said, "She's published 6 achievents in two weeks and that Strange is gloating to heaven! Just now, Loki called and said that Strange even ridiculed Stark Group's research speed as slow as snails climbing a tree in the quarterly summary eting!"
"That damn Supre Magician! One day, I'll show him that the journey of cosmic exploration has no end, and Stark will definitely run faster than him!!!"
Suddenly, the black-clad Stark turned to look at Stark sitting on the chair and stared at him intensely, saying: "Are you still sleeping? Tony, have you forgotten that you're the real Tony Stark!"
Black-clad Stark furrowed his brows, stopped his pacing to look at Stark, and said, "What secret project have you been working on recently? You dumped all the shareholders eting and experintal reports all onto . I'm a scientist, not your professional manager!"
"Wait a minute!" Stark sitting in the chair raised a hand to stop black-clad Stark from speaking, and said: "I am Stark..."
The guy across from him stared at him, paused for a mont, then said: " Yes, you are Stark, but it doesn't an I can't be Stark too."
Stark was stunned. So, in this universe, Iron Man has a clone, and isn't this clone way too brazen?
Sensing his reaction, the black-clad Stark sighed and said, "Well, you're overthinking things. You're still not used to my image. Is this better?"
As he spoke, the black-clad Stark's appearance began to gradually change. The color of his skin got darker and darker, eventually turning green. He revealed his Skrull appearance. Yes, this Stark was actually one of those poor Skrulls who were originally assigned to infiltrate the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D.
Other than the Skrull who cloned Spider Man being called back halfway, so Skrulls who were more accustod to Earth's environnt decided to stay. This scientist was one of them.
He himself was a scholar who enjoyed calm research and was reluctant to follow the fleet to undeveloped barren lands. In the early stage of colonization, he wasn't much needed, so all the Skrulls unanimously decided to leave him, a valuable scientist, in a safe place for future use. This was how he ended up staying on Earth.
Of course, before cloning Stark's abilities, unlike other superheroes, the Skrull couldn't fully simulate Stark's genius brain, but even a seventy percent simulation was rather impressive. As a renowned scholar in the Skrull empire, impersonating Stark was not a difficult task for him.
So actually, there were two Starks present at the Stark Building at the sa ti. Most of the ti, one was handling business affairs while the other remained in the lab. Their duties were rather clear cut, and they complented each other quite well.
But of course, both genius scientists should be conducting experints in the lab. The problem is, when putting two Tony Starks in one room, they'd spend 50 minutes of every hour arguing.
Stark realized from his other self how annoying his temperant was in the eyes of others. But if he could change, he wouldn't be Stark.
Only heroes as kind-hearted as Little Spider had the chance of working with other versions of themselves. Tony Stark, on the other hand, was the classic case of "Too many cooks spoil the broth."
Stark almost jumped out from his chair, startled. The Iron Man in this world was an alien?!!
No, that's not right! Stark quickly denied his initial thought. If the person across from him was the real owner, seeing him, an imposter, would definitely make him furious. However, the green-skin alien seed to be quite adapted to the presence of another Iron Man, which ans, in this world, there are indeed two Iron n.
One was a human, and the other could be the green-skinned alien. Could it be that this type of alien had the ability to clone humans?
Stark almost imdiately inferred the truth, but he was still puzzled: if so, how could Iron Man confidently let an alien roam in his fortress freely? What if he had malicious intentions, wouldn't that break everything?
Stark himself was a skeptic; he felt that he would certainly not accept an alien from a different species wandering around his most vital lab.
"Co on, Tony! Wake up, get your genius brain working! Crush that Strange and leave him devastated. His smug face annoys !"
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