Tony's eyes slowly widened.
"What happened next?" he asked, his voice tight.
"Later, I discovered that with the technology level at that time, it was impossible to realize," Howard said.
"The required computational power was too great, the materials and equipment needed were too advanced, the necessary... anyway, it couldn't be done at the time, so I sealed away all the research data, design blueprints, and calculation formulas."
He paused.
"I thought these things might never be used again, but I didn't expect..."
He didn't finish his sentence.
But Tony understood.
"But Tony, what you have now, I didn't have back then."
"What?"
"Jarvis," Howard said. "A super artificial intelligence capable of trillions of operations per second, plus those 3D printers, nanoscale manufacturing equipment, particle accelerators of yours... these things, I didn't even dare to imagine back then."
Tony stood in place, holding his phone, unable to say a word.
The laboratory was quiet for a few seconds.
Then Tony took a deep breath.
"Send me the address," he said, his voice regaining that Tony Stark-style power, a mixture of anticipation and determination: "I'm going now."
Howard chuckled softly.
"The address has already been sent to your phone, along with the password to the storage room. It's your mother's birthday; you know it."
Tony nodded.
"Dad..."
"Hmm?"
Tony opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, he just said: "...Thank you."
Howard was silent for a second, then smiled with some gratification.
"You're welcome, son."
The call ended.
Tony stood there, looking at the address on his phone screen, silent for a long time.
Then he looked up at Mavuika.
In those eyes, complex lights were flickering.
"Mavuika."
"Hmm?"
"...Thank you, too."
Mavuika looked at him, the corners of his mouth slightly raised: "You're welcome."
After a while, Tony stood in front of the storage room door, looking at the rusty iron gate.
This old house was where he was born; Howard and Maria lived here for a long time.
Tony rarely returned after becoming an adult; to him, this place was just a blurry background in his memory.
Unexpectedly, his father's most precious legacy was hidden in this Underground Room.
He entered the password.
With a click, the door lock opened.
Behind the iron gate was a storage room of about thirty square meters, piled with various old boxes, cabinets, and folders.
The air was filled with the special smell of aged paper and oxidized metal, and in the corner was a dim yellow light, illuminating those forgotten years.
Tony walked in; the storage room was piled with various old objects, dust filled the air, and countless boxes were placed in the corners, chaotic and disorganized.
Tony spent some time finding the target and returned to Malibu with the box of materials.
For the next period, he stayed immersed in the laboratory.
After one night, Tony looked at the data on the screen, his fingers trembling slightly.
Success.
A stable, efficient, and harmless energy element was born.
Tony thought of his father's face, which always carried a faint weariness, his back as he locked himself in the laboratory all those years, and the light in his eyes when he occasionally spoke of "possibilities for the future."
He had always thought he had surpassed his father.
He had always thought his father was just a genius of that era, while he was a genius who transcended the era.
But now he understood that the path his father walked was much further than he had imagined.
It was just that that era didn't give him long enough legs.
Tony stood up.
He walked to the Crafting equipment, looking at that small mass of substance emitting a faint blue light inside the sealed container.
A brand new element.
An element that had never existed on Earth.
The first element created in human history, belonging to Tony Stark.
He began to modify the reactor on his chest.
He dismantled the old palladium core, cleaned all contact surfaces, recalibrated the energy output parameters, and installed the new element core.
For the final step, he took a deep breath and placed the faint blue substance into the slot in the center of the reactor.
Click.
The reactor restarted.
The blue light was brighter and purer than before.
Tony stood in front of the mirror, looking at his chest.
Those blue-black veins were fading at a speed visible to the naked eye.
He looked up, looking at his own face in the mirror.
That face was no longer pale, no longer sunken, no longer carrying the shadow of death.
Those eyes lit up again, carrying that Tony Stark-style, flamboyant, and confident light.
He turned around and looked at Banner, looked at Mavuika.
"Success," he said.
Mavuika leaned against the door frame, the corners of his mouth slightly raised.
Banner stood in place, his face wearing a relaxed expression of "I can finally get a good night's sleep."
The afterglow of the sunset spilled into the dining room through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Tony's Villa, plating the entire space in a layer of warm gold.
The dining table was covered with empty plates and used tableware; the three of them had eaten enough for six people.
Tony's private chef had made seven full courses tonight, from appetizers to desserts, and every single one had been wiped clean.
Tony leaned back in his chair, holding a glass of whiskey, his face wearing that look of satisfaction after a good meal.
On his chest, that new reactor was vaguely visible through his shirt, emitting a faint blue light that was brighter and purer than before.
To celebrate Tony completely getting rid of the trouble of palladium poisoning, Mavuika specially stayed behind and had a simple but lively dinner with Tony and Banner.
"Banner," he started, his tone carrying a hint of tipsy laziness: "I have to admit, you are much more interesting than I imagined."
Banner sat opposite him, holding a glass of orange juice. He didn't drink alcohol; after all, there was the unstable factor of Hulk inside him, and alcohol would make things uncontrollable.
Hearing Tony's words, he raised an eyebrow slightly.
"What do you mean?"
"It means..." Tony swirled his glass.
"I previously thought you were just an unlucky scientist who got hit by radiation and then turned into a big green guy smashing things everywhere, but after spending the last half month together, I discovered—"
He paused.
"You have quite a lot in your head: the application potential of Gamma Ray, new ideas for energy conversion, and even a few breakthroughs in materials science that I hadn't thought of. If you hadn't been irradiated back then, you should have reached a higher achievement by now."
Banner was silent for two seconds, then chuckled softly.
"If I hadn't been irradiated back then," he said, "I might still be in some university laboratory, teaching students every day, going hiking in the countryside on weekends, occasionally having dinner with friends... living the life of an ordinary person."
He paused.
"But if that were the case, I wouldn't have met Hulk."
Tony looked at him.
"Do you regret it?"