In 1991, Tony Stark's mother Maria was playing the piano and singing. The sun shined through the white gauze curtains, illuminating her tightly tied blond hair and the pearl necklace around her neck. The white-haired Howard lifted his head.
He opened the blanket on the sofa, revealing Tony Stark under the blanket. Maria stopped her fingers and looked at them with a smiling expression. Howard Stark asked Tony to come back from MIT for this
Let him look after the house. In fact, he likes this job, but only if his parents will stay at home, or if he doesn't know what will happen next.
"Who is this bum on the sofa?" Howard Stark asked with a mocking look on his face. Tony sat up from the sofa and held up the Santa hat on his head. This was his way of creating a festive atmosphere, but now it looks like
very bad.
"That's why I went home for Christmas, because you guys didn't happen to be home during that time."
"Have a better attitude, my dear." Faced with her son's back talk, Maria scolded. But then she turned to look at Howard, "He has been studying abroad, and he only came back once with great difficulty."
Howard Stark just raised his eyebrows and was unmoved. "You have to do me a favor." He threw the Santa hat on the sofa. "Try not to burn the house down before Monday.
"
Tony Stark nodded pretending to be serious and stood up. "Okay, Monday, then. I know, I will adjust my poker party plans accordingly. Where are you going?"
"Your father is going to take me to the Bahamas for vacation." Maria said.
"We might have to go somewhere first," Howard added.
"The Pentagon?" Tony couldn't help but ask. He couldn't help but poke fun at Howard's secret military business. He leaned over and said to his mother, "Don't worry, you're going to love the holiday menu in the cafeteria."
However, this joke did not make Howard Stark laugh. Tony could feel the contradictory emotions in his eyes, a mixture of love, hate and frustration. "You know, it is said that sarcasm is a measure of potential.
standards." Howard said. Tony turned around and walked to the other side of the room. "If this is true, you will definitely become a great man in the future." Howard waited for Tony to talk back again, but his plan failed.
He turned to Maria and said, "I'm going to get my bag."
"He did miss you when you were away." Maria said to Tony, who was leaning against the door frame. She lowered her voice very low, as if she didn't want to embarrass the two men in the family. "To be honest, you will miss you.
Ours, because this is the last time we'll be together. You know what's going to happen next. Say something, if you don't, you'll regret it."
Her words seemed to stir up the emotions that had accumulated for many years. Tony turned to his father and said the words that he could never bring himself to say in real life. "I love you, Dad. I know you have tried your best."
Wearing a suit, Salomon stood in the back row of the auditorium, holding his arms and watching the current Tony Stark appear in the holographic projection. He has been watching his past self and his parents who have been dead for many years. "This is me.
What the hope is," he said, "is to transform the architecture through binary regression, or 'diarchy' for short - I'll have to do some research on that acronym - to control the hippocampus and clear traumatic memories. This is an extremely expensive method.
." Tony Stark leaned on the piano, causing the holographic projection to ripple and shrink into a pixel puzzle. The scene in the living room in 1991 slowly disappeared, and he stood on the stage of the MIT auditorium.
There was only a small white room and a piano on the stage, which were prepared to simulate a certain sense of reality. The scene he presented to the audience was lamentable, but it was not what really happened. "This cannot be done.
Changing the fact that they didn't make it to the airport doesn't change the efforts I made to ease my grief."
Salomon walked around the audience and walked backstage.
He watched Tony Stark maneuver around nagging professors trying to beg for funding with stupid ideas, and an assistant apologizing for a teleprompter error. He watched Tony Stark go in and out of the bathroom, looking depressed.
He walked towards the elevator. Although he really wanted to go up and chat now, Tony Stark still had a conversation partner waiting for him - that was a black middle-aged woman. Tony Stark's first reaction was that
His fans and admirers always show up in unexpected places.
"It's amazing what you do for those young people," she said.
"That's what they deserve." Tony Stark said sincerely, "Of course, it also makes my conscience feel better."
"Someone has said that generosity and guilt are related. But do you think that if you have money, you can do whatever you want and make mistakes at will?"
Tony Stark was at a loss for words. He pressed the call button on the elevator. "Are you going up?"
"I'll stay here." The middle-aged woman said and opened her wallet. Tony immediately became alert, stepped forward and grabbed her wrist tightly. She did not break away, but looked directly into Tony's eyes calmly.
That look sent chills down Tony's spine. He could only apologize and take a step back, explaining that it was an occupational hazard. It was indeed true. He had learned a lot of terrible things since joining the Avengers, not to mention...
There is an even weirder world.
Salomon looks at Tony Stark's chest as a picture is taken.
This is a question from a mother who has lost her child and should not be bothered anyway.
"His name is Charlie Spencer," she said, "and he was killed by you in Sokovia. That's nothing to you, because you think you're fighting against us, but you're just
He's fighting for himself. Who can avenge my son, Stark? He died, and it's all your fault." She turned and left, and Tony Stark stood there holding a picture of Charlie Spencer.
In his life, there was almost no situation that left him speechless. This was one of the few times, because no matter how he defended it, Charlie Spencer's mother was right, and the Avengers killed him.
Got him.
"Life is a number." It wasn't until he spoke that Tony Stark noticed Salomon standing against the wall. The mystic's posture was quite relaxed. He lit a cigarette for himself and took a long breath.
He took a breath. However, Stark was startled. He subconsciously pressed his finger on his watch. This is a special watch that allows him to have defensive capabilities in emergencies. But Salomon does not have it.
Pay attention to his small movements, because nothing here can pose a threat to him. "From a macro perspective, life is a number, but it is an extremely heavy number." He emphasized again, "From a perceptual perspective,
I support her statement. But from a rational point of view, I must abandon this weakness."
"Why are you here!" Tony Stark asked angrily.
Salomon did not answer this question, but continued to talk to himself. "Think about it, the Avengers faced two choices at that time. One was to let Ultron's actions be allowed to knock Sokovia down and trigger a European crisis.
Major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions will kill more than one billion people, and those who were supposed to be saved will also die miserably; second, we must do our best to prevent it and save lives, no matter how much we save." He said, "If you don't watch,
If you caused this matter, one billion and several thousand is a simple mathematical question. Are you qualified to give up their lives on behalf of those billions of people? Or do you mean that the dead have no human rights? Who denied their survival?
s right?"
"Why did you do this?" Tony Stark quickly approached Salomon, "You started a war, you killed innocent people, and you even wanted to drop a nuclear bomb! I don't know why you did this, but you
Now a butcher! Where is the Salomon I knew, the kind, humorous teenage Salomon!"
"I ask you, are you qualified to give up their lives on behalf of those billions of people? The answer is obvious, that's why I did it, Tony Stark. The problem I face is 3.5 billion people and hundreds of
Ten thousand people, can I give up their lives on behalf of 3.5 billion people, just because I refuse to give up those millions of people?"
There was no expression on Salomon's face, "I have also thought about whether I should wait until the alien fleet begins to invade, wait until the infrastructure and organizational structure of human society are broken up, and then stand up and lead mankind to resist the aliens.
Solar System Fleet. If I do this by then, the problems I face will be reduced to one percent of what it is now, because by then there will be no forces on earth that can compete with the organization I secretly cultivated. The survivors who are working on their own will
Being annexed by a powerful army, transformed into part of the organization and then continuing to fight, my voice can flow unimpeded on the earth. As long as I don't tell others the secrets of the alien fleet, but continue to collect resources, I can wait until I can seize supreme power.