Marvel Book of Magical Events

In 1991, Tony Stark's mother Maria was playing the piano and singing. The sun filtered through the white gauze curtains, illuminating her tightly tied blond hair and the pearl necklace around her neck. The white-haired Howard lifted the blanket covering the sofa, revealing Tony Stark under the blanket. Maria stopped her fingers and looked at them with a smile on her face. Howard Stark asked Tony to come back from MIT so that he could look after his house. He actually enjoyed the job, but only if his parents would stay home or if he didn't know what was going to happen next.

"Who is this bum on the couch?" Howard Stark asked with a smile on his face. Tony sat up from the sofa and adjusted the Santa hat on his head. This was his way of creating a festive atmosphere, but now he looked terrible.

"That's why I went home for Christmas because you guys didn't happen to be home during that time."

"Have a nice attitude, my dear." Maria scolded her son when he spoke back. But then she turned to look at Howard, "He has been studying abroad and only came back once with great difficulty."

Howard Stark just raised his eyebrows and was unmoved. "You have to do me a favor." He tossed the Santa hat on the couch. "Try not to burn the house down before Monday."

Tony Stark nodded solemnly and stood up. "Okay, Monday, yeah. I know, I'll 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 asked, unable to resist teasing Howard about his secret military business. He leaned over and said to his mother, "Don't worry, you're going to love the festive cafeteria menu there."

However, this joke did not amuse Howard Stark. Tony could feel the conflicting emotions in his eyes, a mixture of love, hate and frustration. "You know, they say sarcasm is the measure of potential," 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 back to Maria and said, "I'm going to get my bag."

"He did miss you while you were away." Maria said to Tony, who was leaning against the door frame. She kept her voice low, as if she didn't want to embarrass the two men in the family. "Honestly, you're going to miss us because this is the last time we'll be together. You know what's going to happen. Say something, and if you don't, you're going to regret it."

Her words seemed to stir up emotions that had accumulated over the years. Tony turned to his father and said the words he could never bring himself to say in real life. "I love you, Dad. I know you did your best."

Salomon, wearing a suit, stood in the back row of the auditorium, holding his arms and watching the current Tony Stark appear in the holographic projection. He had been watching his past self and his parents who had been dead for many years. "That's what I'm hoping for," he said, "to transform the architecture through binary reversion, or 'diarchy' for short - I'll have to do some research on that acronym - to control the hippocampus and clear the traumatic memory. It's a An extremely expensive method." Tony Stark leaned on the piano, causing the holographic projection to ripple and shrink into a pixel puzzle. The living room scene in 1991 slowly faded away, and he stood on the MIT auditorium stage. There was only a small white room and a piano on the stage, which were prepared to simulate a certain sense of reality. The scenes he presented to the audience were harrowing, but not what actually happened. "It doesn't change the fact that they didn't make it to the airport, and it doesn't change the efforts I made to ease my grief."

Salomon walked around the audience and headed backstage.

He watched Tony Stark maneuver around nagging professors trying to beg for funding with silly ideas, and an assistant apologizing for a faulty teleprompter. He watched Tony Stark go in and out of the bathroom and walked to the elevator with a depressed expression. Although he really wanted to go up and chat now, Tony Stark still had a conversation partner waiting for him - a middle-aged black woman. Tony Stark's first reaction was that they were his fans, and his admirers always showed up in places he didn't expect.

“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 easier."

"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 momentarily speechless as 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 didn't break away, but looked directly into Tony's eyes calmly, a look that sent shivers down Tony's spine. He could only apologize and take a step back, explaining that it was an occupational hazard. This is indeed the truth. Since joining the Avengers, he has learned a lot of terrible things, not to mention... there is an even weirder world.

Salomon watched as a picture was taken of Tony Stark's chest.

This is a question coming from a mother who has lost her child and should not be bothered anyway.

"His name was Charlie Spencer," she said. "He was killed by you in Sokovia. That's nothing to you because you thought you were fighting for us, but you were just He's fighting for himself. Who can avenge my son, Stark? He's dead, and it's all your fault." She turned and left, and Tony Stark stood there holding a picture of Charlie Spencer. There was almost no situation in his life that left him speechless, and this was one of the few times, because no matter how he defended it, Charlie Spencer's mother was right, the Avengers killed Got him.

"Life is a number." It wasn't until he spoke that Tony Stark noticed Salomon standing against the wall. The mystic mage's posture was quite relaxed. He lit a cigarette for himself and exhaled a long breath. However, Stark was startled, and he subconsciously pressed his finger on his watch. This is a special watch that gives him defensive capabilities in emergencies. But Salomon didn't pay attention to his little moves, because nothing here could pose a threat to him. "From a macro perspective, life is a number, but it is an extremely heavy number." He emphasized again, "From an emotional perspective, I support her statement. But from a rational perspective, I must abandon this A kind of weakness."

"Why are you here!" Tony Stark asked angrily.

Salomon did not answer the question, but continued talking to himself. "Think about it, the Avengers were faced with two choices at that time. One was to let Ultron's actions be allowed to smash Sokovia down, triggering earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in Europe, killing more than a billion people. Those who were supposed to The people being saved will also die miserably; the second is to do your best to stop it and save lives, no matter how much you save." He said, "If you don't think you are the cause of this matter, a billion or a few thousand is A simple math question. Are you qualified to give up their lives on behalf of the billions of people? Or do the dead have no human rights? Who denied their right to live?"

"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 on 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 today, 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 be heard unimpeded on Earth. As long as I don't tell others the secrets of the alien fleet and continue to collect resources, I can wait until I can seize supreme power. That day. Guess, why didn’t I do that?”

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