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Old Steve scratched his head. It should be fine, he thought. Little Spider should have been a high school student when he and Tony fell out. Now he's eight years old. He couldn't have been in high school for decades, could he?
Old man, you returned to the Universe after being a delivery man, right? You didn't come to the wrong Universe, did you?
Lionel was speechless. Was this old man really the Captain America of this Universe?
"Maybe he just looks older!" Old Steve finally managed to say after a long pause.
"Then he's a prodigy, and he's even in an early relationship."
Old Steve was silent.
Lionel and Old Steve chatted idly, when suddenly the World went dark, and the streetlights went out.
"A power outage! It seems to be quite widespread. In over eighty years, New York has only had a few power outages!"
Old Steve still hadn't forgotten the 81 years he'd made up for himself.
"Old man, you're so old, you should go home quickly. This power outage doesn't look simple!"
"Huh?"
Old Steve didn't understand what Lionel meant. Perhaps he really was too old.
"I'm leaving first, old man. Watch your old bones!"
Lionel waved his hand, bidding farewell to Old Steve.
Taking out his phone, Lionel dialed a number. Before it could ring twice, the call was answered, and a soft female voice came from the other end:
"Hello, Lionel, is there anything?"
"Makima, I might have found a powerful target suitable for you to control."
"Oh, that's good news. Do you want me to come find you?"
"Then let's meet at the park near the neighborhood."
---
On the Manhattan Bridge, Peter Parker was passionately kissing his reconciled girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. Indeed, no girl could resist an expression of love using a giant web on the Manhattan Bridge.
Peter Parker gazed at Gwen and said softly, "So you were still wrong."
"Where was I wrong?" Gwen Stacy asked with a smile.
"You said we were drifting apart. That's not right."
"We won't drift apart. I will always follow you, forever!"
"Even if a thousand reasons tell me we shouldn't be together, I don't care. I hate them. As long as you still love me, that reason is enough!"
"We need to make a decision."
"What?" Gwen Stacy's smile grew even brighter.
"I heard there are also criminals in Britain, and many of them."
"That's right, countless," Gwen Stacy said, her eyes beginning to moisten.
"Then how can I be at ease with you going there alone?"
"Jack the Ripper is still at large, isn't he? You need me, and I need you. The citizens of London also need Spider-Man!"
"I will go to Britain with you. Applying to Oxford might be a bit troublesome, but I don't think that will hinder me!"
"Haha, I believe you!"
Tears fell from Gwen Stacy's eyes as she kissed Peter Parker again.
As they kissed, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy both heard a commotion. Looking down, the lights of New York were rapidly extinguishing.
Both of them were stunned. Peter Parker asked in surprise, "What's happening over there?"
At the New York power grid control center, the blue Max Dillon, also known as Electro—a name he gave himself—reached out, his palm transforming into liquid-like electricity, extending towards a power tower. A powerful current instantly tore the power tower apart. Electro, defying Newton, flew into the air, and the endless electricity from the New York power grid converged towards him.
Like Thor descending, a powerful electric field surged, causing the power outage in New York.
Inside Tony Stark's Villa, in his private laboratory, Tony Stark was perfecting his iron suit. A few days ago, he test-flew the Mark II, and although the process was exciting, he really almost crashed to his death.
The new generation of the iron suit uses aerospace materials, making it immune to high-altitude icing. Now, only debugging remains.
The lights in the laboratory flickered suddenly but quickly returned to normal. Even Tony's computer didn't shut down. Tony, focused on debugging, paused. The power had gone out and restarted. His Villa had its own power supply system.
Normally, it used external electricity, but if the power went out, its own system would activate. Important instruments in his laboratory even used a separate power supply method independent of the Villa, specifically to prevent data loss due to sudden power outages.
With the miniature Arc Reactor, Tony was already planning to power the entire Stark company using Arc Reactors, rather than just having the main company use that bulky behemoth for power.
"Jarvis, what's going on?"
Tony Stark asked his artificial intelligence butler, Jarvis.
Jarvis was an artificial intelligence developed by Tony Stark years ago, named in memory of his deceased old butler, Jarvis. This was a groundbreaking technology and the greatest aid in Tony Stark's ability to complete the iron suit design in a short time.
Jarvis said, "Sir, there's a large-scale power outage in New York."
Tony Stark asked with emotion, "A large-scale power outage, that's a rare phrase. What's the cause?"
"According to the last data, a huge gap appeared in the New York power grid, and all the electricity flowed into that gap, exceeding the power grid system's threshold, which caused the large-scale power outage."
"Ha, is someone stealing electricity? That's quite an appetite!" Tony Stark was always humorous.
"Jarvis, are there any similar records?"
Jarvis quickly searched online data and soon provided Tony Stark with the results.
"Sir, about half a month ago, a blue human capable of absorbing electricity appeared in Times Square, New York. At that time, he caused power malfunctions in Times Square and nearby areas of New York and was later subdued and taken away by Spider-Man and the New York Police Department. This incident is very similar. It's possible that blue human is responsible."
"I know Spider-Man, but what's this electricity-emitting Smurf?"
Tony Stark was still forging in a cave in Afghanistan half a month ago and had no idea about Electro.
Jarvis said, "There is very little information about the blue electricity-emitting human online. Do you need me to search the New York Police Department's internal database?"
"Go ahead," Tony Stark often had Jarvis access various government agency databases. Their firewalls were nonexistent in Tony and Jarvis's eyes, and they had long grown accustomed to it. Anyway, no one but him and Jarvis would ever know.
A few seconds later, Jarvis provided the answer:
"Sir, the New York Police Department's records show that a few days after they detained the blue electricity-emitting human, he was taken away by people from the Osborn Group. I traced it and found that this afternoon, Harry Osborn, the son of the Osborn Group, infiltrated the Base where the blue electricity-emitting human was being studied. After causing a disturbance, he released the blue electricity-emitting human. Afterward, the two returned to the Osborn Group's headquarters. There is no further information because the nearby surveillance cameras were damaged by the blue electricity-emitting human. The experimental Base code-named the blue electricity-emitting human Electro. Here is his research data."