Chapter 49: Heart of Iron Armor (Part 1)_1

At this moment, Coulson was standing at the entrance of Nick Fury's office looking very perplexed. He watched everyone who approached this crossroad and all of them turned right.

Natasha walked out of Nick's office, and Coulson stopped her to ask, "What's going on? Why are they going the long way around? I remember the shortest route to the elevator is to turn left."

"Because our extraordinarily expensive psychotherapist is in the office on the left, waiting for people to come in for consultations."

"You guys actually invited him here? How much is he charging? It's not 100 million dollars an hour, is it?"

"Not quite, according to Nick's report, it's 50 million dollars an hour."

Coulson gasped, "So you're saying, if I go to him for a consultation now, I'd essentially be making 50 million dollars?"

"You could see it that way."

"There must be a lot of people lined up, right? Can I even make the queue today?"

"On the contrary, there's no one there." Natasha shrugged as she said it.

After that, she turned right and walked away. Coulson shouted, "You're going the wrong way! That's the emergency exit! The elevator is on the left!"

Without looking back, Natasha replied, "I want to get some exercise! You know, to stay healthy!"

Coulson was even more confused. Then, Nick came out of his office. Coulson greeted him, "Good morning, Director."

Nick nodded at him and said, "Recently, Natasha has pulled out of the Stark Group affair, she will also deal with the Hand Union case. Your main job is to keep an eye on that wandering kid, just make sure he doesn't cause trouble."

Coulson said yes, and then he saw Nick turning right as well. He stopped his boss and said, "Director, the elevator is over there. If you go right, you're going to have to walk at least five minutes more."

"I've been exercising lately, planning to take the stairs."

Coulson was entirely puzzled. He mumbled to himself and went to the left. He saw the door to Shiller's office was not closed. He knocked and went in. Shiller was bent over writing. When he saw someone come in, he looked up in surprise and said, "Someone actually came in..."

Coulson was taken aback for a moment and then said, "Is the office not open today? I remembered that at the meeting this morning, it was said that psychological consultations would start today."

"The office is definitely open! Please come in, you're the first!" Shiller stood up with his pen in his hand and even pulled a chair out for Coulson. His enthusiastic welcome left Coulson feeling a bit at a loss. Shiller said, "Of course, you might also be the only one."

"I don't understand, why is no one coming for free psychological consultation that costs 50 million dollars an hour and that S.H.I.E.L.D. is footing the bill for?"

"Probably because I'm charging 50 million dollars, and yet Nick still agrees ..."

"What's the problem with that? Doesn't this prove that the Director strongly endorses your abilities?"

"Hmm... Disregarding his macro-economic understanding of expenditures and his flexible use of reimbursements within the system, have you ever considered that perhaps his endorsement of me is exactly why there is nobody here?"

"Do you mean to say, they feel you are too good?"

Shiller looked at him almost speechlessly and said, "Are you really a Level 8 agent? What level is Natasha then? The max level isn't 100, is it?"

"Which agent would like to find a very good psychotherapist, only to have all their inner secrets revealed?"

"I thought it was just simple emotional adjustments, like relieving anxiety or something."

"Then you can just go to the entrance and smoke a cigarette."

"That's not going to work, the damned smoke detector here is too sensitive," Coulson said.

"Okay, do you want to alleviate any depressive mood here?"

"Not really, it's just that I see you and the Captain seem to get along well. I want him to sign his autograph on my whole set of fan cards, could you help me ask him?"

Shiller spread his hands and said, "Alright, I knew it. But who asked me to be earning this money? If this can really relieve your anxiety. Give me the cards, I promise to have him sign each and every one of them. It could be seen as justifying my 50 million dollars-an-hour fees."

Once Coulson left, Shiller was leisurely sipping coffee in his temporary office. But before he could laze through the morning, as soon as he opened the door to get some fresh air, a sudden alarm blared out, a small device on his head emitted red light and began to blare relentlessly.

Shiller was startled, but his spider-sense did not react. For safety, he was ready to blink out of there at any moment. But just as a shrill cry rang out, the fire sprinkler system was directly activated. The sprinkler head immediately sprayed out a large amount of water mist. If Shiller hadn't dodged quickly, he would have been soaked.

Coulson and several agents ran over, looking up at the smoke detector, then back at Shiller. Shiller held his coffee cup just as bewildered, staring back at them.

"There's no smoking here."

"I didn't smoke."

Coulson gave him a sceptical look, "Your expression is exactly like Natasha's when she got caught. Did you throw your cigarette into the sink's drain pipe?"

"Of course not, I don't smoke indoors."

Coulson indeed didn't smell any hint of smoke, he looked up at the continuously blaring smoke detector, saying, "Alright then, it looks like this damned thing is malfunctioning again."

"How did you manage to cause a smoke alarm to make such a raucous commotion of over a hundred decibels?"

"You'd understand if your place had 32 fire incidents in a month."

The symbiont in Shiller's brain said, "I'm feeling a bit dizzy and nauseated. Let's get moving."

Shiller said, "Well, that concludes our psychological consultation for today. I still charge for a full hour, even if it's less than one. Don't forget to ask Nick to pay the bill, I'll be leaving now."

Shiller left decisively, for he knew this was no accident. Someone didn't want him there any longer. Each time he had to take a long five-minute detour down the stairs was certainly a waste of time.

Humans are always like this. In the absence of mind-reading, they always fantasize that someone can understand them, know their thoughts and desires. But when someone truly possesses a mind-reading capability, everyone else tends to avoid them.

Of course, this particularly applies to S.H.I.E.L.D. , most likely owing to Nick Fury's unconventional talent management paradigm.

After returning to the clinic, the sleep-deprived Shiller of tens of hours decided to take a brief rest. The symbiont played a very hypnotic track for him, which quickly put him to sleep. But before he fell into deep sleep, he was awakened by a phone call.

"What? ... So why call me? Go to Pepper."

"She's busy? So do you assume I'm not? Fine, I'm not busy, but there's no way I'm going back to the lab. I really don't want to change another light bulb."

"Yes, yes, I'm aware that it's not a light bulb, but a cutting-edge battle armor. Can you stick to the point?"

"Jarvis discovered anomalies in the part inventory? The number of parts is off? Are you sure it wasn't you who miscounted? Okay, I know...I'm aware you're meticulous, but how can I assist? I can't make the missing parts materialize out of thin air, and no, I can't use magic…"

" ... I can't say for sure," Shiller paced in his clinic's living room, "Perhaps you should ask Jarvis for his guess. He is much more than a computer now."

"Jarvis is a bit hesitant? Don't you know the answer then? Or is it that you suspect someone, but are just unwilling to admit…"

"No, my mind-reading techniques certainly can't be used on such a case. Stop kidding... I can tell you there's an 80% possibility that the person you suspect…"

After hanging up the phone, Shiller pulls Pikachu towards him, stroking his cheeks, and says, "A strong fortress is always taken from within before the external defenses give way. It's difficult to comment on these matters."

"What trouble has that stiff-looking guy run into?" Pikachu asks.

"Seems like he's missing some parts from his armor. His AI assistant gave him a potential suspect he doesn't want to hear about, so he's currently doubting life."

"You humans love to make your own life harder." Pikachu summarizes, "That kid named Parker, he's worried about accidentally killing the hostages while playing video games. It's just a game. Even if the hostage dies but the kidnappers are eliminated, wouldn't we have won?"

"So you charged in and went through with killing the hostage?"

"What else was I supposed to do? That kid kept dragging things out. You humans dwell too much on meaningless stuff, get too invested, worry unnecessarily about yet-to-happen things, and yet shirk from dealing with what has already happened."

"I never thought you, a rodent, would utter such insightful words."

"Of course, I am Detective Pikachu."

In the Stark building, all lights in the Stark Laboratory have been switched off, leaving only some of the instrument lights faintly blinking like twinkling stars.

Stark slumped onto the lab table, sitting on the floor. Next to him, a symbol flickered on his phone, indicating that Jarvis was also present.

"I am trying to comfort you, sir."

"And so, you just turn off all the lights?" Stark's voice was a little hoarse, a testament to his sleep-deprived exhaustion.

"This might help you relax a bit. Dim light helps soothe the mind." Jarvis said.

Stark closed his eyes. He found a more comfortable position leaning against the lab table, drew a knee to his chest, propped his arm on it, and began to speak dreamily, " … Maybe this is karma."

"Numerous people were displaced due to Stark Group's weapons. So it's inevitable that people I once trusted would all leave me… "

"We cannot conclusively say Uncle Obadiah is the culprit yet." Jarvis said, "According to our analysis, there's about a 96% chance that he might be."

"You could relay it in layman's terms." Stark said.

"I apologize. What I meant to say was there's a 4% chance it was not him."

"So, who else could it be?"

Mr. Shiller accounts for 2%, Mr. Parker accounts for 1.2%, and you yourself account for 0.8%."

"Shiller? You expect someone who can't even separate parts 1 to 10 of a mecha to steal the core component? As for Peter, he might be a bit naïve, but he wouldn't stoop to theft. He's the kind of guy who would be shocked at sssseeing me smoke a cigarette."

"I am trying to comfort you." Jarvis said.

In the end, Stark felt all sounds of the world gradually fade away. In a dreamy state, an image of Howard came into his mind.

Back then, Uncle Obadiah and his father were standing together. They both looked so young.