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Stark's eyes widened in shock as a wisp of fog drifted towards him, the pain in his body momentarily forgotten.
He knew all too well what the fog represented, but how could Shiller of this era possibly have fog? Wasn't his ability to turn into fog due to the Symbiont? Did this era already have Symbionts?
Wait, could Shiller also have traveled back in time?!
Suddenly feeling as though he had discovered the truth, Stark roared inwardly, "Shiller, you damn fraud!!!!"
But before he could take any further action, he noticed that the undulating fog had abruptly stilled.
Air is always moving, nothing in it can be completely still. This abnormal stillness completely separated from the air around it, creating an eerie detachment all its own.
Garrett abruptly turned around, but Stark saw it more clearly than he did: the fog vanished in an instant and a small figure appeared behind everyone.
Stark thought it was Shiller. He indeed had the face of a young Shiller, but his clothes were blood red.
"Ah!!!!"
Stark gasped sharply, sitting up in bed, his blurry vision fixated on the ceiling light swinging precariously.
Warm hands immediately clasped his, and as he turned his head, he saw Howard, his eyes red with bloodshot veins, looking at him.
"Thank God, you're alright," another pair of hands pulled him into an embrace, and Maria said in a tearful voice, "Thank God you're okay, Little Tony, God bless..."
Stark's rationality gradually returned, along with his memory. He shivered uncontrollably as certain fragments from that night brought a bone-chilling coldness that paralyzed him.
Howard clearly noticed his abnormality and said with his mouth agape, "Don't be afraid, Tony, it was just a nightmare, you've awakened now, and mom and dad are here with you; there's nothing to fear."
Yes, there's nothing to fear, how could an adult be scared by a nightmare? Yet Stark still clung tightly to Maria's hand. Because he was an adult, he knew that it wasn't just a nightmare.
Was that... Shiller?
Maybe not him, but at least a part of him. The boy in the blood-red clothes was Shiller at some point in his life.
Stark began to tremble uncontrollably.
He felt that the emotion flooding his heart wasn't fear, and he couldn't even find a word to describe this emotion.
He was fearful, but the fear wasn't from the brutality he had witnessed. Stark was considering at what point in Shiller's life had such brutality been fostered?
If one were to delve deeper, this emotion could be described as despair—despair that even the past, which seemed so hopeless to both him and Natasha, was still something Shiller had fabricated.
But the purpose of fabricating this story wasn't to feign tragedy; quite the opposite, it was to cover up a brutal truth that could utterly devastate people like Stark.
No one can imitate a cruelty they've never seen, and the life moment that had witnessed such cruelty appeared in the form of a child.
In that moment, Stark understood that Shiller repeatedly concealed his past and kept inventing new stories, perhaps because the true reality wasn't something that most people could handle; the weight of that past was enough to crush superheroes like him.
Maria hugged him tightly. After Stark had grown up, his parents would never do such a thing again, so he felt a comforting familiarity from his mother's embrace that he hadn't experienced in a long while.
He lay in bed thinking for a long time until, as if remembering something, he looked at Howard and asked, "Where did you find me and bring me back from?"
"No, Tony, no, you never left..."
"Answer me!" Stark raised his voice, looking at Howard, especially into his eyes and said, "Don't treat me like a kid who doesn't understand anything! I've grown up!"
Howard stroked his own eyes and continuously touched his cheeks, his voice choked with emotion, "At the factory entrance."
"Someone provided the police with a video of you being kidnapped, and they followed the surveillance footage to find you, but they said... there was a murder at the factory," Howard described vaguely, "Several people died, and from the traces at the scene, it appeared you had been dragged away from there."
"A murder?"
"Yes, it's currently speculated to be the result of infighting within a terrorist organization. It's also confirmed that the victims were your kidnappers, perhaps their rivals didn't want them to use you to blackmail me, so they..."
Howard couldn't continue, but Stark looked into his eyes and said, "But all this can't explain why the crime scene was like that, right?"
"You saw it?!" Howard exclaimed in shock, "Weren't you knocked out?"
"No... no... Maria, we might need to get him a psychologist," Howard said, "I'll make the call now."
Stark swallowed hard, trying his best not to recall what he had seen, but those images still played over and over in front of his eyes, as though possessed.
```
Perhaps Howard was right; he needed a psychologist earlier, but the ones Howard had found were not professional enough, Stark thought, and it just so happened that he had a friend who was a psychologist.
Natasha was still sitting behind her desk watching short videos when she suddenly saw a flash of light from the next room. By the time she got there, Stark was lying on the ground, vomiting.
Natasha quickly went over to help him up and said, "What's wrong? Are you one of those people who have allergic reactions to time travel?"
Natasha hurriedly took out the allergy medicine, but Stark rushed to the bathroom, vomiting again, and came back looking as pale as a ghost.
"What on earth happened?" Natasha realized that things were not so simple, she said, "What did you encounter in the past?"
In fact, she had a bad feeling, hoping he hadn't run into Shiller committing a crime. But that couldn't be right; during the era Stark had visited, Shiller should have still been a child. She hadn't seen a child version of Shiller at the bottom of the High Tower either. He couldn't have started committing crimes so early, could he?
Stark collapsed on the couch, took a long sigh, drank the water Natasha handed him in one gulp, and then said, "You know something, don't you? You know more than we do."
Natasha sat on the couch next to him, with only a small coffee table between them, and she didn't hide anything, nodding as she said, "I also visited Shiller's Tower of Thought, just not the same place you guys went. There, I saw more of Shiller, more... dangerous Shiller."
"Don't blame me for not telling you," Natasha immediately defended herself, "Clearly, Shiller has some not-so-nice past, these Shillers might have come from that time, they... I don't know how to put it, superheroes can't hear this."
Stark glared at Natasha angrily.
Natasha thought Stark was angry about her concealment and explained further, "I think you've heard about my going down with Shiller, during that fishing trip I didn't take you on. That's when I saw one of them, extremely dangerous, more so than anyone I've ever seen."
"Yes, there's an unpleasant truth that Shiller might have once been a criminal. I couldn't tell you like that because it sounds too much like sowing discord, and nobody would believe it."
Natasha clearly had been holding back for a long time, she said somewhat desperately, "You think I haven't subtly hinted to certain people? But those Shillers in the Abyss seem to have some kind of magic power, always drawing the ignorant sheep towards them. My hints are completely unappreciated."
"And don't look at me like that, you do the same, don't you? Greed is already mild, but you still hover around him every day. What if you had to confront those... those Shillers I can hardly describe? Wouldn't you go mad?"
Natasha was truly speaking earnestly, she said, "Don't think just because you have strong willpower you need to test your limits. The best way to defend against them is to not know them at all..."
"You're a bit late with that advice," Stark said somberly, staring at Natasha.
Stark's grim gaze startled Natasha, she looked at Stark and tentatively asked, "Did you meet them? Which one of them? What did they look like?"
Natasha started to calculate in her mind, meeting the Manipulator wouldn't be too bad, that older Shiller was more stable and wouldn't harm without reason. But if it was the one wearing black or the one with shoulder-length hair, that could be problematic. They were extremely efficient in their methods.
Stark couldn't have had a fight with them and lost, could he?
"A boy in red," Stark said with a pained expression, obviously not wanting to recall the encounter. He stared off into space for a long time before starting to heave again.
Natasha, however, was taken aback. A boy? She didn't recall seeing any little boy. Could it be some character trait of Shiller as a child?
"What did he do?" Natasha asked instinctively.
"No... I don't want to tell you," Stark said, clenching his teeth. "I need a psychologist now."
Natasha turned pale with shock. She said, "You just said you need a psychologist, you acknowledge you are ill??? My God, what have you been through?!"
"Don't ask so much! Call the doctor! Ugh!!"
Natasha was somewhat at a loss. She said, "Who do you want me to call? The only psychologist who can come now is Shiller."
"No... not the current Shiller," Stark still had some sanity left. He heaved for a long time and then said, "He can't know what I saw when I went back to the past."
Stark thought Shiller hadn't recognized him, and to keep up the charade, he said, "I need to go find the Shiller of the past, the one, the one who hadn't time-traveled back."
Natasha picked up the Time Machine for him and asked, "It must at least be the point where he has become your psychologist, otherwise your first encounter with each other will be changed."
"Just... just like that..." Stark was already somewhat delirious. He meant to agree with Natasha, but what he actually thought was that she should just send him to a point after their initial meeting. Shiller was taking so many fees from him every quarter, what was one more session?
But Natasha misunderstood. She thought Stark was confirming the matter of their initial meeting, pressed the Time Machine, and sent Stark straight to the day he first met Shiller.
"Oh my God!!!" Stark, who was feeling faint, heard Pepper's scream, "Tony! Tony??!! What's wrong with you?!"
Then came an even more furious roar, "I told you before, you need to see a doctor!! You're in this state and still you're trying to avoid treatment?!"
"This time you must listen to me, I'll find you a psychologist right away, he'll be here this afternoon!"