3 The Cure

"What am I doing here? Well, I got invited to come, for one. Plus, my secretary forced me too..." he mumbled before smiling brightly, "But whatever, none of that matters! I never thought I'd be able to meet you, Michael--May I cay you Michael? I'm not too good with titles like 'Dr' and whatnot," he smiled, his blue eyes shining through the pair of sunglasses he was wearing.

Smiling in reply, I nodded my head, "Of course you can call me Michael, as long as you don't hold it against me if I call you Tony," I put out a hand in greeting and he took it enthusiastically.

"Oh yeah, that's fine, I'd prefer it if everyone called my Tony--Mr. Stark was my dad, you know?" he was still smiling but I felt a distinct impression that he was sad when he mentioned his father.

My memories gave me a hint but not a full picture about him and his father.

"So, what has you so excited to meet me, Tony? I can't be the only Nobel Prize winner you know. You know Dr. Banner after all," I asked, keeping my smile but my tone took on a more serious sound.

Shrugging, he let go of my hand before replying, "Well, I've talked a lot with Bruce, but he doesn't have the expertise that I need right now - I need someone who's got a PhD in Biochemistry," he smirked, obviously referencing me.

"Oh? So you've done your research, huh?" I laughed and he joined him holding his hands up in the air.

"You don't get kidnapped Afghanistan and then go back to not checking out everyone's background before you meet 'em - it's just a precaution," he laughed but, again, from the look in his eyes, I could tell that he was still suffering from the time he was kidnapped. Poor guy. But I guess you can't become a superhero without getting a few 'scratches' along the way, huh?

"No, no, it's fine - I understand," I said, before moving back onto the topic, "And why do you need my Biochemistry expertise, Tony? There are plenty of Biochemists in the world."

"Well, I don't just need 'a' Biochemist," he put emphasis around the 'a' before carrying on, "I need one of, if not the best, Biochemist, Dr. Michael Morbius. Plus, your extra expertise in Physiology and Medicine will no doubt help with the project I need help with," he said quietly, as if he didn't want to tell the world that the great Tony Stark needed help from some relatively normal Biochemist.

Chuckling, I gestured over to a quiet corner of the room before speaking, "Then, should we go and talk about this project?" I asked seriously, having a slight idea of what Tony needed my help with.

Nodding Tony, looked over to another part of the hall and waved his hand over before turning back to me, "Sorry, but I need my personal assistant - she's got most of the information you need," he smiled, seemingly apologetically, before I saw someone approaching us.

She was decently tall, at around 5'9", with ginger-red hair and a pair of piercing green eyes that were focused and aimed forward like nothing could rattle her attention. She was as equally beautiful as she was determined it would seem, as she had a beautiful face, with light freckles over her nose and cheeks - some could even say they were peppered over them - she had a lithe and slender figure and it was fit into a tight red dress that seemed both classy and refined but also quite seductive-looking.

When she looked over to me she smiled and when she got in front of me, she put out her hand with a smile, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Morbius. My name's Virginia Potts, but most people call me Pepper," she smiled politely before continuing on, "I think the work you've done for the world is brilliant and inspiring," she continued smiling before looking toward Tony who was smiling with a carefree look on his face, "If only Tony could be as magnanimous with his gift and not just build suits all the time," she said, but it was obviously a joke and I chuckled a little at it.

Tony, knowing it was a joke, put on an indignant looking, before replying with a sulky tone, "Come on, Pepper, I've saved the world from an Alien invasion - cut me a little slack!" this also gained a laugh from me and I put out a hand toward the woman.

"It's lucky that Tony has you then, isn't it, Ms. Potts? Otherwise he'd be making suits all the time and letting his company fall down the drain," I smirked, this time making Pepper laugh while Tony jokingly lamented about everyone being up against him.

"Please, Dr. Morbius, you're flattering me," Pepper smiled politely before putting on a more serious expression, "Should we go and talk about the thing Tony needs help with?"

Nodding, the three of us walked off. But not before I told Neena that I'd be having a chat with Tony Stark about something pretty important. She nodded and smiled before going back to talking to Sue and Reed with Milo. While I was there, Reed was talking about how him, Sue, her brother, and Ben are going into Space soon.

Hm. My mind feels like I'm missing something when I here about that...

I'll need to think about it later. I know that those memories are all fragmented, so I can't push them otherwise it'll have the opposite effect and I won't get anything from them.

When we got to the corner of the room, Pepper brought out a device that was two black handles with a screen of clear material connecting them. She tapped on the screen and it flashed to life, showing a loading screen. Once it had loaded she opened up a file and passing the device to me. Taking a hold of it, I gave them a glance of confusion before looking down at it.

It seemed to be the make-up of some kind of genetic manipulating disease. It was made to fill in an empty slot in human DNA...and somehow hack the brain into healing things that normally couldn't be healed before.

"This...this is brilliant," I said, looking up at the two before down again and frowning, "Though...I doubt the human body would accept this without some trouble--Which is why you've brought it to me, right?" I looked up at them and saw Pepper nod, while Tony had a half-grin on his face, obviously not liking not being able to do something on his own.

"Yes, it has the potential to be quite...explosive if the body doesn't accept it, if you get what I mean," Pepper gave an awkward smile, and I nodded showing that I understood.

Looking to the top right of the screen, I saw the name I knew I'd see.

Extremis.

"And you want me to see if I can remove this side-effect?" I asked, still looking down at the make-up of the disease or it would be better to call it a man-made disease made to cure. Because it was a disease. It puts the body through multiple abnormal symptoms and sometimes the body loses and you die. It may not seem like a disease because of benefits but it's still one.

"Yes. We've took it to everyone we can, but no one could do anything. We're hoping you could," Pepper said, her voice dripping with a pleading tone.

Nodding and looking up at the two of them, I spoke, "I think that I can but I'm not 100% sure. You'd have to let me study it for a while and see what I can tweak and change without it losing the benefits it gives. I hope that's fine with you two?" I asked, wanting to know how they'd feel about supplying me with a source of Extremis for a certain amount of time.

Tony went a bit awkward looking before he scratched his head, obviously thinking about something, "Well, we'd have to put you under surveillance if you did it in your own lab, but if you came to Stark Tower to work on it, I wouldn't see a problem in supplying you with Extremis and leaving you alone to do you thing," he shrugged after saying all this and I could tell he was being sincere about it.

Sighing, I felt a bit awkward with the thought of going to work in a lab that would no doubt be monitoring me, but in the end, I came to the reasoning that I had nothing too big to hide with what I wanted to do with Extremis. Though after I take my 'cure', I'll definitely have to be careful with what I show.

"Yes, that's fine. I'll work on it when I can...Urgh...!" I felt my mind buzz and I felt my arms go weak as a shooting pain shot up my back. I swayed to the side and hit the wall and used it as a support. My vision was flashing and I felt my ears buzzing before I felt two pairs of hands hold me up.

"Michael! Are you okay, buddy?" Tony said with a serious voice and I looked at him as it took a few more seconds than normal for me to register what he said to me.

Blinking rapidly, I knew what was happening and shook my head at his answer before turning to Pepper, "Ms. P-Potts, please go and get Neena - the woman with chalk white skin - and tell her that she needs to get over here...!" I spoke with a slightly slurred voice as more pain wrecked itself through my system.

Pepper nodded, seemingly having an innate sense for how dangerous the situation was and practically flashed away over to Neena.

"Michael, what's happening?" Tony said, his tone worried but his face calm and steely.

As expected of an Avenger.

"I'm going through Organ Failure, Tony--Do you have any kind of device that can give off a decent amount of an electric shock?" I asked, my breath picking up in speed as I felt more pain in my chest.

Tony's eyes widened and he quickly reached into his pocket and when his hand came out, it was covered in a red and gold gauntlet that seemed sleek and crackled with power. He looked to me while holding up the gauntlet, seemingly not knowing what to do with it, "What do you want me to do with this, Michael?" even though he seemed to not know what to do, the look in his eyes told me that he actually did know but he didn't know when.

"Put it on my chest and send a charge into my chest--Now!" I heaved, my chest filling with pain because of the fact that my heart was going into cardiac arrest.

I felt the armored hand press against my chest and my vision blurred as the electric shock went through my system, burning through my clothes along the way.

Apart from the pain of the electricity traveling through my body, I didn't feel so short of breath anymore and I could feel my heart weakly chugging along. But I knew it wouldn't be for long. Luckily Neena appeared from the side and took me in her arms. Upon seeing the burnt hole in my clothes, she glared at Tony, "What did you do?" she hissed, her anger clear to everyone in the close vicinity. Luckily no one was near enough to hear her.

"He didn't do anything, Neena...We need to get back to the lab, as soon as possible," I said, the urgency in my voice bringing her out of her anger and let her see what was happening.

Her eyes widened and she called Milo over, the two of them dragging me out of the hall.

Multiple people were watching, some even had cameras or phones out. But I couldn't be bothered with them as my vision continued to darken and I was forced to put more and more effort into keeping my eyes open.

. . .

"We...don't have time...for the unaesthetic, Neena!" I shouted as I ripped off my jacket and shirt and lay down on the delivery machine I'd made. The machine was a metal table, with in an indent in the shape of a human's body in it. It was perfectly fitted to me and I felt my body sink into it like a key into the perfect lock.

Two pairs of metal restraints came up from the table and locked my arms and legs to the table and I felt the multiple little hole scattered over the table open up as multiple different needles pierced into my body.

There were three targets for these needles; major and minor muscle groups, deep muscle, and my bone marrow.

The first group was fulfilled quite easily and with very little pain other than brief stings. The second was...quite painful. Like a searing hot brand had been shoved into my body. But the third group of needles...they made my eyes darken and my mind and ears buzz. I didn't even feel the pain clearly as it had clearly overloaded my nerves but even then, just a snippet of that pain was maddening.

After the first batch of needles entered, the casket for the machine started to lower down onto me. I think I heard Neena speak to me but I could register it anymore.

I didn't worry, however, as I'd given Milo and Neena a quick run down on how to work the machine and told Neena that anything she needed could be found on my computer under the file name 'CureDeliveryMachine'.

As the casket closed down and locked into place with the part of the machine I was lying on, I felt another patch of needles enter me, from the front this time.

It was equally as painful.

Then I had a brief moment of clarity. A brief moment of complete calm and serenity that seemed to last forever. But that serenity was cut short as I felt the cure get pushed into my system.

And that's when I realized something:

The real pain had only just begun.