Since it was an interception midway, Howard and Maria took Stark in a hurried visit to the orphanage, almost too eager to meet the young genius.
Stark also wanted to see the young Shiller, so he didn't stay in the office to make polite conversation with Howard and the staff but ran out early. Unexpectedly, he bumped into a little boy with a somewhat familiar face as soon as he left.
"Shiller!" Stark instinctively called out his name. The other party stopped and turned around, and in that moment, Stark saw a puzzled expression on his face.
Stark thought it might be the young Shiller wondering how he knew his name, so he explained, "I've known about you for a while now, the software system you came up with is pretty impressive, but it's lacking a bit."
The other party's puzzled expression deepened.
Stark took a couple of steps forward, folding his arms and said, "My parents said they want to adopt you, do you want to come and meet them?"
Stark thought he hadn't shown any aggressive posture, and the words he spoke were just ordinary pleasantries. However, the little boy in front of him took off running, and he ran very fast.
Stark immediately took off after him, but the young Shiller was incredibly fast. He vanished into the bushes and out of sight in an instant.
Stark realized right away that he had caused trouble, but soon the orphanage staff hurried after him. Noticing Shiller was missing, everyone became somewhat panicked.
"I didn't say anything to him, I just wanted to be his friend, I don't know why he ran away," Stark said. "I really didn't say anything."
Stark felt wrongly accused. He knew as the last one to see Shiller, people would assume he must have said something to anger Shiller and cause him to run away, but he really hadn't said a word.
Wait a minute, could it have been that phrase, "You did well, but it's still not enough"?
Stark slapped his forehead in annoyance, having forgotten that both he and Shiller were children. He wasn't really a child, but Shiller was. What would a child think if someone suddenly appeared and said, "My parents want to adopt you, but your work isn't as good as mine"?
Moreover, the Starks were already intercepting along the way. The child had already made arrangements with the Hamiltons, only to suddenly be adopted by another pair of strangers. The child must have been frightened already, and jumping out to say something like that would certainly cause issues.
The Starks apparently thought so too. Maria's face showed a trace of guilt, and she tugged on Howard's sleeve, saying, "Maybe we should just let it be, it's not good for the child, for both Tony and Shiller."
Howard was also conflicted. Stark, however, slammed the table, saying, "Are you just going to give up like that? That's not acceptable!"
Of course, it wasn't acceptable. What if Shiller ended up being adopted by the Hamiltons in the end? Wouldn't that mean he would still have to go through the tragedy of their deaths?
Moreover, Stark knew that his own parents would die later than the Hamiltons, at least nearly ten more years. But the Hamiltons might not have much time left. What would happen to Shiller's life if he lost his parents at such a young age?
At least in the Stark household, after the Starks' deaths, there would still be him and Obadiah. But what was there in the Hamilton family? Shiller was already prone to loneliness, another shock like this could make it irreparable.
Stark was frantic but couldn't find a reasonable argument to demand Howard and Maria must adopt Shiller. In the end, Howard gave in.
However, Maria suggested, "This child has great talent, it would be a waste for him to stay in an orphanage his whole life. How about this? We fund the Hamiltons with a sum of money and also let them join the Stark Industries software development team. This way, they can provide Shiller with better educational resources."
Howard nodded, thinking it was a solution. After all, they were both becoming increasingly busy. Bringing another child home might not allow for proper care, and it could make Tony feel neglected. It would be better to provide direct financial support since, with money, what good teacher couldn't be hired?
Stark gritted his teeth in frustration, but there was nothing he could do. After all, he was just a child, and their family life was rather traditional. Children didn't have much say, and at his young age, making a fuss wouldn't help.
Soon enough, the vice president of the orphanage came to apologize, stating that if a child was too resistant, they couldn't be adopted. No matter how good the home or how strong the desire, it wasn't possible, to protect the child.
The staff had found Shiller, but he expressed he didn't want to be adopted by the Stark family. The vice president subtly mentioned that perhaps they had been too hasty and frightened the child. If they interacted more in the future, there may be a chance.
However, Howard and Maria had made up their minds and instead reached out to the Hamilton couple, promising to financially support their adopted son until he came of age, and to provide them with a stable job.
The Hamiltons had just finished their work with Hydra and had not yet found a new employer, so they gladly accepted and brought Shiller back home with them.
But Stark was still not prepared to give up, thinking that with adequate preparation, he could at least extend the Hamiltons' lives so that they wouldn't die so soon. They should at least live until Shiller was an adult. Otherwise, what would happen to the inheritance?
As the saying goes, every coin has two sides. The Hamiltons were not bad people; they were just not very worldly and were solely focused on their grand dream of developing artificial intelligence, unable to distinguish between friends and foes.
Stark Industries, out of interest in profit, could not invest too much in such an advanced project. They felt that Howard could not accommodate them in the project team, and their work was inconsistent, causing Obadiah much dissatisfaction.
Hydra was willing to offer them help and allowed them to conduct research under Zola's surveillance. They thought Hydra was a great ally in achieving their dream and were involved with Hydra on the side. The last scientist Stark saw being as reckless as this was Reed Richards.
Stark had used Obadiah and Howard to warn them several times without effect. He then realized that his own influence was too small. Although he now showed exceptional talent, he had yet to contribute significantly to the family enterprise. Few listened to him, and most still treated him as a child.
Without another option, Stark spent a year reading books, obtained his degree about two years early, and then began to immerse himself in developing various types of machinery, gradually becoming one of the pillars of research at Stark Industries.
After making some contributions, he finally had some say and allocated a great deal of funding to the Hamiltons for research. Whether they came up with something or not, the priority was to keep them in the lab and away from associating with Hydra.
Of course, Shiller noticed the changes and was really at his wit's end. What was Stark doing coming back again?
Actually, the script Shiller had written had been successful; he was duly adopted by the Hamiltons, who were then killed by Hydra as the timeline recorded, and he had a smooth background story.
Due to the butterfly effect on the timeline, the future Natasha investigating Shiller's childhood no longer came up empty but uncovered this story. In theory, that should have been the end of it.
But right at the time when Natasha discovered this childhood background story, Stark found out about it.
Or maybe the background story Shiller had devised was just too tragic, leading to Natasha's inability to stand it and her dissatisfaction indirectly guiding Stark to find a way to go back in time so that the Starks could adopt Shiller.
In this way, the future would not be altered, because whether it was the Hamiltons or the Starks, both were destined to die at Hydra's hands, so Shiller's hatred towards Hydra would remain unchanged, as would his future actions against them.
But one benefit of being adopted by the Starks was that Shiller could lead an easier life. First, the Starks were wealthier, and as a legally registered adopted child, he could inherit the estate, ensuring no material concerns.
Secondly, Tony Stark was very protective. If they became a family, at least during the time of the Starks' passing, the two could keep each other company, preventing Shiller's condition from worsening and ensuring his mental well-being.
Lastly, of course, was the fact that Howard and Maria were eventually resurrected, and it was Shiller who resurrected them. Resurrecting his adoptive parents as their adopted child seemed more reasonable than resurrecting a friend's parents, thus rounding off the story.
But Shiller could not do that because if the story went that way, he would have to spend even more time figuring out why he didn't recognize Stark at their first meeting.
And why Stark's adopted son insisted on leaving the family business to work at New York Elderly Association Hospital and was later recruited back to become Stark's psychologist.
Although he could concoct a story of brothers who turned on each other over differing methods of avenging their parents and accidentally reunited by chance, a plot that would take four or five seasons to explain on a TV series, Shiller really didn't have the energy to act it out. How much would he have to be paid to exert himself so much???
To avoid having to explain why he and Stark didn't recognize each other at their first meeting, Shiller tried as much as possible to avoid encountering Stark. This also accounted for the significant difference in appearance between childhood and adulthood, making non-recognition after just one meeting plausible.
But Stark was relentless, never losing heart, and kept trying to figure out how to bring Shiller into the Stark household.
All one can say is that stubborn people only have equally stubborn friends, with one wanting to craft a concise version of his background story and the other determined to rescue the former from dire straits. One avoided contact, while the other insisted on it, and both were stubborn for well over a year.
During this year, both parties were too busy fighting each other to notice that Hydra, which had been in contact with the Hamiltons, had taken note of Howard Stark through Mr. Hamilton's frequent visits to the Stark Industries Base.