In The DC World With Marvel Chat Group

Chapter 223: Morning and Night

In the early morning, when the first ray of sunlight in New York shone through the gap in the curtains, Stark moved his arm and covered his eyes with his arm, seeming to resist the light. Pepper opened her eyes sleepily and looked at the clock on the wall in confusion, then suddenly woke up.

"It's 9 o'clock, damn it! I still have a meeting to attend!"

Pepper grabbed her hair and sat up from the bed, startling Stark with her movements. However, he still looked dazed and turned over, hugging her waist with his arm and saying, "Don't worry, baby, we can, uh, sleep a little longer."

Pepper threw his arm away and sat by the bed, combing her hair with her hand. She turned to Stark and said, "You useless and idle person! I'm not one of those models who accompanied you to fool around on the yacht. There are still a lot of orders to negotiate at the expo."

Pepper sat by the bed, covering her forehead with her hand. Stark finally became a bit more awake and lay on the bed, looking at the ceiling with his eyes open. He blinked a few times and then said, still groggy, "What meeting? What orders?"

Pepper glanced at him and said as if questioning life, "How could I believe your nonsense last night? Oh my god."

"Don't be like that," Stark muttered, still sleepy. He turned over and tried to hug Pepper's waist with his arm.

"I remember you were very touched last night. It was the first time we had such a chat. That was really nice."

Seeing Stark's eyelashes trembling continuously, Pepper sighed and turned back. She looked at the sunlight shining into the room through the window, still dazed from being awakened suddenly. Between the blurred vision of dawn and dusk, the light was somewhat indistinguishable. The conversation from last night echoed in her mind.

After the negotiations were over, Stark felt complicated. The military bowed to him, Hammer Industries paid the price, and Ivan's revenge failed completely. Logically speaking, he should be happy, but he wasn't.

He felt empty in his chest and surrounded by an indescribable sense of loss. It wasn't until he saw Pepper that he realized where this emotion came from.

Stark was not someone who would express his yearning verbally, but he had to admit that when the sense of loss disappeared upon seeing Pepper, he realized that he was missing her.

Pepper walked into the room and saw Stark standing by the floor-to-ceiling window. It was already late at night, and the New York starry sky was not as bright as she had imagined. After sunset, the fog obscured the moonlight and starlight, making the entire night sky look like a drooping black curtain.

There was some faint light in the room, but it wasn't enough to illuminate everything clearly. Stark stood in front of the glass with a faint cold light, turning his head to look at Pepper.

Pepper felt it was strange because Stark's eyes were always somewhat moist, as if containing a faint light. Even though there was no light source now, she could clearly see his emotions from his eyes.

Pepper didn't know if it was the emotion called yearning that lit up his eyes or if the sun in his eyes was shining itself, but whenever she was being stared at by him, it was always difficult for her to refuse.

Pepper walked to his side and looked into his eyes. Every time this happened in the past, Stark felt like a toddler learning to speak, with a bunch of words on the tip of his tongue but unable to say anything.

But today, his language system seemed to have just gone online, and he said to Pepper, "Do you know when I was happiest today?"

Pepper had dealt with too many of Stark's wild questions. She knew that often, Stark didn't need an answer, he just needed someone to listen. So she thought for a moment and replied, "I think it was when you saw the look of surprise on Hamer's face after activating the defense system?"

"When you decided to renovate the building, I didn't really agree because it was risky. But now it seems that the choice was correct. If we can't demonstrate enough strength, then the trouble will be endless."

"I don't want to discuss that."

Pepper looked up at Stark, feeling like his expression had become very focused.

Stark said, "The happiest moment for me was seeing Peter and his girlfriend at the exhibition."

"They had backpacks on their backs, walked to every product, showed a surprised expression, listened carefully to the explanation, whispered to each other, avoiding the crowd."

"I saw them too. Youth is good, right?" Pepper smiled.

"I felt happy because," Stark looked at Pepper and said, "at that time, I was thinking if we could do that too."

"I'll wait for you at a designated place, and then we'll follow the crowd and enter the exhibition hall together, feeling surprised and happy about everything we see."

Pepper shook her head and sighed, "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. That girl named Gwen is very interested in those machines. When she talks about these things, she's even more knowledgeable than Peter."

"But I don't know anything about these things and I'm not very interested. If you want to find someone who can accompany you to explore an industrial exhibition all day and be surprised from start to finish, it definitely won't be me."

"Do you know?" Stark suddenly changed the topic, "A few days ago, I had a dream, a very realistic dream. You can listen to it as if it were a real story."

Pepper looked at him, hearing his hoarse voice echoing in the room:

"One day in the future, after experiencing many disasters, Stark Industries went bankrupt."

"When I woke up from a chaotic dream, I found that I had nothing."

"I was homeless, hungry, and could only barely survive on food from the relief station."

"I felt exhausted and humiliated. I had to move slowly on the street like a beggar, trying to find a complete cardboard box or an oil drum that hadn't been extinguished for warmth."

Pepper looked at Stark and saw a hint of fear between his eyebrows. She touched Stark's face with her hand and said, "I can't imagine if this really happened."

Then she suddenly realized and said, "But this can't happen. You have so many friends, how could they let you fall into this situation?"

"What if they're all dead?"

Pepper shook her head and said, "No matter what happens, you will always try to protect them."

"No matter how bad the disaster is, you will always be the one who rushes to the front."

Pepper touched Stark's face and looked into his eyes with concentration. "Sometimes I don't want you to do this, but if you just survive by compromising, then you wouldn't be Stark anymore."

Stark turned his head and smiled helplessly. "You're making it difficult for me to continue this story."

"Then don't tell it. It's just a dream, no need to worry about it."

"A dream?" Stark murmured to himself. "Perhaps."

"But this story has an important ending. Don't you want to hear it?" Stark was eagerly looking at Pepper, who couldn't refuse his request. She asked, "What ending?"

Stark opened his mouth, seeming to return to a state of speechlessness. After a pause, he said, "The ending is that when I thought I was about to die, the first person I thought of was you."

Maybe he felt that his words were too sudden, so Stark explained, "I dreamed that I was about to die, and before I died, I was thinking about where you went. Then I woke up and realized it was just a dream."

"Do you know why I realized it was a dream?" Stark reached out and paused in midair before covering Pepper's hand that was stroking his cheek. He said, "Because you won't leave me, right?"

Pepper looked straight at him, then suddenly laughed and said, "You went around in circles just to say that?"

"I know I am shameless. I didn't give you any promises, but I asked for this answer first. But you've known me for a long time," Stark also laughed. "That's just how shameless I am."

"Well, if you go bankrupt, then it serves you right. If you can't continue to pay me such a high salary, I will definitely turn around and leave," Pepper said.

Stark pulled Pepper's arm and stood closer to her. He said, "Before, someone who claimed to be able to read minds suggested to me that he could tell me an answer at an appropriate time."

"What answer?"

"Do you really love me?"

Pepper was about to say that there was no such thing as mind-reading, but suddenly realized what he meant. She looked at Stark in shock.

Those brown eyes were like thick honey, and Pepper felt like a bee that had been bewitched and was a little dizzy.

Outside the glass curtain wall of Stark Tower, a gray mist drifted at the corner of the building. Spider-Man hung upside down on the eaves with a spider web, watching the scene inside. He turned his head and said to the gray mist, "Although I don't know what you are, it's not right to spy."

The gray mist suddenly turned into an arrow and pointed towards Stark and Pepper. Spider-Man turned his head and saw that behind the flickering glass curtain wall, the two were kissing.

After the kiss, Stark let go of Pepper. Before he could say anything else, in the corner of his eye, the gray mist slowly turned into a symbol, a checkmark.

Thinking back to last night's scene, Stark lay on the bed, covering his eyes and couldn't help but laugh.

Pepper was changing clothes and turned back angrily, "Are you happy that I'm late? What are you laughing at?"

"I don't have it," Stark struggled to sit up from the bed, running his messy hair with his hand. "I'm your boss, I can give you a day off, and we-"

"Don't talk nonsense. What about the pile of paperwork and meetings and the company after I take a day off?" Pepper said coldly.

"It's okay, I can take over for you for a day. I'll handle these things," Stark offered.

"Well, then I can rest for a day," Pepper said indifferently, "and then spend twice as much time in the next three months to deal with the losses caused by your day off."

Stark quickly changed his clothes. Pepper had never seen him move so quickly before. After putting on his coat, checking his book and putting on his sunglasses, he lit a cigarette and left. Before leaving, he said, "I have to prove to you that there's nothing in this world that Stark can't handle."

An hour later, the Sanctum Sanctorum received an unexpected call. Strange took the phone from the receptionist's hand, put his hand on his waist, and said helplessly, "This is the cosmic hotline. Can you call my private number if you have something to say?"

"I need some help, man. Damn it, I think I messed up something. This contract seems to be from last year, but I've already signed it."

Strange heard Stark's slightly panicked voice and said, "Since you can provide services to so many random people, this should be easy. Hurry up and come over, or Pepper will kill me!"

"We specialize in tasks related to cosmic deities," Strange explained.

"I am a cosmic deity too!!! Hurry up and come over!!"

"The Stark Group's problem, you should go to a professional staff team. We are just a group of fraudsters, I mean financial workers."

"I'm looking for financial workers!"

"Then why don't you go to Wall Street?"

"But you guys are on Wall Street, aren't you?!!!" Stark shouted.

Half an hour later, Strange and Stark, who looked dejected, appeared outside the Arkham Sanatorium. Schiller blocked the door and said, "If you want to enter, pay first."

"And also pay for yesterday's diagnosis," he added.

"But you told me that yourself," Stark glared at Schiller.

Schiller smiled and said, "Did something make you think I would force you to buy something?"

"You're a terrible doctor!"

"I'll say it again."