The last embers of the fireworks faded silently in the night sky, returning New York to its usual brilliance.
The opening ceremony of the Stark Expo was nothing short of perfection. The headlines were already claimed by "the Stark father and son" and the sleek, azure phantom known as Son of the Wind. The ecstatic crowd gradually dispersed, leaving behind a littered plaza and the massive holographic screen still buzzing faintly.
Backstage, in a makeshift VIP lounge, the atmosphere was a stark contrast to the outside revelry.
Tony Stark yanked off his tie, tossing it carelessly onto the sofa. He stood with his back to the door, gazing out the massive floor-to-ceiling window at the futuristic city he'd built. His red-and-gold armor had been stripped away by robotic arms, leaving him in an expensive tailored shirt, but the crisp fabric couldn't hide the faint weariness clinging to him.
He raised his left hand, pretending to adjust his cuff, while his right hand discreetly slipped a matchbox-sized black device from his pocket, pressing it against the artery on his wrist.
The device's screen lit up silently with a row of tiny, cold numbers.
Blood Palladium Toxicity Level: 11%
Tony's pupils contracted sharply.
It had risen again. Despite minimizing his use of the suit and dialing the arc reactor's output to its lowest sustainable level, the damned toxin was like a parasite, spreading relentlessly through his body, slowly eating away at his life.
A wave of dizziness hit him, and the familiar metallic taste rose in his throat. Anxiety, like an invisible hand, gripped his heart tightly.
"Nice view, huh?"
A cool voice broke the silence of the room.
Tony instinctively slipped the device back into his pocket, turning with his trademark devil-may-care grin already in place.
"Of course, it's my empire," he said, tilting his chin at Paul, who had slipped in unnoticed. "So, kid, get enough of the spotlight tonight? Should I hand you the 'Best Scene-Stealer' award?"
Paul didn't take the bait. The teenager's deep, piercing eyes locked onto him, sharp as a scalpel, as if they could see through his skin to the arc reactor slowly killing him.
"When was the last time you used the nutrient sleep pod?" Paul cut straight to the point, his tone leaving no room for evasion.
Tony's smile froze.
"What sleep pod? I'm bursting with energy. Just last night, I—"
"One month and three days," Paul interrupted, his voice low but hitting like a sledgehammer. "Big White's core database logs every time you use the pod. The last time was the day before the expo preparations began."
The air in the lounge seemed to solidify.
Tony opened his mouth, but any defense felt hollow. He'd forgotten that his precious son had a nosy, health-obsessed marshmallow robot watching his every move.
"I… I've been busy," he said, avoiding Paul's gaze as he walked to the bar and poured himself a whiskey, hoping the alcohol would mask his guilt.
"Busy researching a replacement element?" Paul stepped closer, cornering him at the bar. "So busy you're throwing your life away? What do you think you are, Superman, living off photosynthesis?"
There was a suppressed anger in the boy's voice—not just reproach, but something deeper, something Tony had never sensed in him before… fear.
He's scared.
The realization made Tony's hand tremble slightly around his glass.
"I'm fine," he said, his voice softer than he intended. "It's just a small setback. JARVIS has built a virtual particle collider, and I'm screening every possible element combination. It'll be sorted soon—"
"Your virtual lab failed, didn't it?" Paul cut him off again, mercilessly exposing the lie. "Three days ago, you nearly fried JARVIS's CPU running the 70th simulation. And the result? A dazzling virtual firework show and a big fat 'Element Not Found' conclusion."
Tony fell silent.
He stood there like a kid caught red-handed, staring at the amber liquid in his glass, wordless.
Yes, he'd failed. He'd exhausted his knowledge, marshaled Stark Industries' top computational resources, and still came up empty. The feeling was worse than a missile to the chest. It was a humiliation for Tony Stark, the world's greatest genius.
"So you went back to the garage, playing medieval alchemist with your bottles and beakers?" Paul's tone softened, but the disappointment was palpable. "You didn't even dare tell me you failed. Tony Stark, when did you become such a coward?"
"I'm not a coward!" Tony snapped, his bloodshot eyes—red from sleepless nights and stress—flaring. "I just… I just need more time! I can fix this! I have to fix this!"
"By gambling your life?" Paul's voice rose too. "What happens when you 'fix' it? Do I get to plan your funeral? I've already got the eulogy drafted: 'In memory of the great Tony Stark, who gave his life to invent… a new battery!'"
"You little punk!" Tony nearly crushed the glass in his hand.
They stood there, glaring at each other—one furious and anxious, the other disappointed and worried. The city lights outside the window glowed brilliantly, reflecting the stubborn, proud faces of father and son.
After a long moment, Paul let out a heavy sigh, tinged with a weariness beyond his years.
"Tonight, you're going into the sleep pod," he said in a commanding tone that brooked no argument.
Tony opened his mouth to protest, but one look at Paul's eyes—daring him to say no—defeated him. Like a chastened rooster, he nodded.
"…Fine."
Seeing him relent, Paul's tense shoulders relaxed slightly. He walked over, took the whiskey glass from Tony's hand, and replaced it with a glass of warm water.
"Your approach was wrong from the start," Paul said softly, gazing out the window.
"What?" Tony blinked.
"You've been chasing a new element, something that doesn't exist in nature," Paul said, turning to face him. "You're trying to create instead of discover. You're playing God, but you've forgotten that sometimes the answer isn't in the future—it's in the past."
"The past?" Tony frowned, confused.
Paul didn't answer directly. Instead, he asked, "How long has it been since you looked at Howard Stark's work?"
"Howard?"
The name was like a rusty key, jabbing into the depths of Tony's memory.
His father.
The man who was always stern, sparing with praise, yet built Stark Industries, contributed to the Manhattan Project, and co-founded S.H.I.E.L.D.—a legend.
"His old notes, those outdated blueprints, the research papers you tossed out as a kid," Paul said, his gaze distant. "Have you ever considered what someone with his intellect, facing the same energy problems in his time, might have done?"
Tony's heart sank.
He remembered.
As a child, his father's study was a forbidden fortress, filled with incomprehensible diagrams and models. He recalled Howard locking himself in there for entire days.
Tony had inherited everything—his company, his wealth, his genius—but he'd deliberately buried the memories of the man himself. Those memories were laced with distance and the pain of never being enough.
"A man who helped create the atom bomb, who studied the Tesseract and its energy…" Paul's voice was like a whisper from another time, echoing in Tony's ears. "Do you really think he left nothing for the future Starks?"
Tony didn't speak.
He stood frozen, his mind conjuring the blurred, imposing face of his father.
Paul walked to the door, pausing without looking back.
"Go look."
"Maybe the dawn of that new element you're searching for isn't in the distant stars. Maybe it's in your basement, covered in dust, waiting for you for twenty years."
The door closed softly.
Tony was alone in the lounge.
He walked slowly to the window, gazing down at the sprawling expo grounds centered around "STARK EXPO." It was his father's vision from decades ago, a grand blueprint for the future.
He'd always thought he'd surpassed his father.
But now, he felt like a child lost on a giant's shoulders.
The "past" he'd deliberately forgotten, the man named Howard Stark, seemed to peer at him through the cold glass, across decades of time.
In his eyes, there seemed to be an unsolved riddle, a… buried wish.