Tony was in his private garage, which was basically a full laboratory at this point, tuning the Mark II.
That was when JARVIS suddenly spoke.
"Sir, given your experience in Afghanistan, you previously instructed me to notify you of any abnormal global incidents that defy conventional explanation or demonstrate capabilities beyond current technological limits."
Tony lowered the wrench in his hand and wiped his fingers with a towel.
"Did Oscorp finish its super-soldier project? Or did that knockoff clown Hammer finally build something that doesn't embarrass him?"
Tony glanced sideways, mildly puzzled.
It wasn't like New York's vampires had started marching in the streets demanding blood-drinking rights, right?
JARVIS answered him promptly.
"No, sir. This concerns an individual who began dominating the news the day after your return."
"Him?" Tony finally turned around. "Wait, the headlines aren't still about me coming back to New York? Somebody stole my front page?"
JARVIS did not comment further. Instead, he displayed footage from the incident outside the Daily Bugle building.
Most public cameras had been destroyed during the fight between Clark and the gang members, but JARVIS had obtained internal police footage, giving Tony a relatively complete view of what happened that night.
At first, Tony didn't take it too seriously.
How impressive could this guy be?
More impressive than the Mark II standing right in front of him?
Please.
Competing with Tony Stark's tech?
Good luck.
Then the footage actually started playing.
A man in a blue suit stood there under a storm of bullets, taking thousands of rounds without even bothering to dodge. One bullet struck his eyeball directly, and he didn't so much as blink. It flattened into a copper disk and fell away.
Tony's jaw nearly hit the floor.
What the hell was that?
He looked back at the Mark II he was still testing and suddenly felt a lot less excited about his own supposedly groundbreaking work.
Electronic engineering, mechanical design, weapons systems, all of it suddenly seemed to be losing ground to biology and genetics.
Had he chosen the wrong research field?
"God... that's impossible."
Tony strode to the holographic display and began moving both hands through the air, zooming in on the footage again and again. He desperately wanted it to be fake.
But if JARVIS had verified it and brought it to him, then it wasn't fake.
Soon enough, Tony shifted to a different theory. Maybe the suit was the special part. Something like vibranium, maybe. Or some kind of force-field generator.
"JARVIS, scan the material of his suit. Is it some new alloy I don't know about? Or an invisible force-field emitter?"
"Sir, analysis indicates the suit is likely derived from an abandoned Oscorp project involving adaptive nano-fiber material. It possesses a certain level of durability, but nowhere near enough to stop rifle fire."
"Conclusion: the bullets were not stopped by the suit, but by the body underneath it."
Tony sighed again.
He went to Afghanistan for a little while, and the world came back like this?
But his expression recovered quickly.
He wanted to solve it.
He had to solve it.
His scientific brain was wide awake now, and Tony Stark did not like losing. He would build stronger armor. If this person ever posed a threat to humanity, Tony intended to have an answer.
"Keep going, JARVIS."
The footage continued until the moment Clark dragged the military Apache helicopters down safely.
The man bent his knees slightly.
Then the entire image shook violently. The road shattered beneath him. A white shock ring burst across the ground, and the man shot into the sky as a streak of blue light.
"Pause! Frame-by-frame analysis of his launch data!" Tony's breathing grew a little heavier.
At that speed, a human body would be pulp.
"Sir, calculations indicate that within the first tenth of a second, his acceleration exceeded Mach 8. More puzzlingly, there is no evidence of thrust, jet exhaust, or an anti-gravity engine activating at the scene. In other words, this appears to be either raw physical force or an innate ability."
"Physics..." Tony said at last, staring at the screen. "Physics just gave up on this guy."
For a long moment, he looked at Clark's chest, at the S emblazoned there, and said nothing else.
Reality had just slapped him across the face.
Then it had shoved physics onto the floor and kicked it for good measure.
"S..." Tony touched his neatly trimmed goatee, already thinking. "Super?"
"JARVIS, raise finding this guy to top priority. Activate global satellite monitoring. Use facial bone-structure modeling and gait-recognition algorithms. Cross-check every male in New York with a similar build."
Tony turned back toward the Mark II, and now his eyes were bright with excitement.
"Looks like we need to move faster, JARVIS. The world's a lot more dangerous than I thought."
Back at school, Clark and the others were sitting in class, looking at Eddie, who was still wrapped up in bandages.
"So you're really doing this?" Peter whispered during class. "Quitting the garage job and going to the Daily Bugle as an intern who might not even get a base paycheck?"
Ever since that day, Eddie's eyes had been sparkling like someone had finally turned on the lights inside him.
He had a goal now.
"Peter, you don't get it." Eddie held his book in his uninjured left hand. It looked ridiculous, but he really was studying.
He had changed.
He was now determined to develop in every possible direction. Morals, body, discipline, practical skills, all of it.
The one thing he was clearly missing was academics.
So that needed special attention.
"When you've been right up against death," Eddie said quietly, "when you've seen people get attacked by the mob just for reporting the truth, when you've seen that... uh, that godlike guy drop out of the sky, the old stuff starts looking pathetic. Fighting in alleys, stealing parts from the garage, acting tough on the street. It's like living as a rat in a drainpipe. I don't want that anymore."
Eddie leaned closer to Peter and lowered his voice.
"I'm going to the Daily Bugle. Uncle Ben already agreed to let me work as his photography assistant. I'm going to use a camera to capture the deepest secrets in this city. I'm going to make sure bastards like Kingpin have nowhere left to hide."
Mary Jane smiled and patted Eddie's shoulder, genuinely happy that her friend had found a path.
"That's more like it. That's the Eddie we know. Just promise me that when your temper gets going, you won't smash the camera over some gangster's head instead of taking the picture."
"That one might be hard," Eddie said with a grin.
Clark couldn't help thinking that his father was incredible.
Ben kept changing the people around him.
Eddie, who might have ended up walking into ruin in another future, had found a new road now.
A brighter one.
The road of a hero who exposed the darkness of the world.
Maybe they should just let Eddie move in with them someday.
They had spare rooms, after all. It would be good for everyone. Ben and May liked Eddie too.
Besides, Eddie was basically alone at home now.
That kind of loneliness could eat at a person.
If he lived with them, Ben could teach him directly.
Give him extra lessons.
A little private coaching from the best.
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