The teleportation portal opened, and Loki stepped out. She had barely glanced around when her gaze fell upon Mary's belly. She smiled and said, "Congratulations to you both, she will be a beautiful little princess."
"Really? Did you just say 'little princess,' right?" Harry was so excited he nearly jumped up. "Am I going to have a daughter?"
Loki didn't say much more. One by one, the group followed her into the teleportation portal, but the portal didn't open in the backyard. Instead, it opened in front of the Stone House.
"You're becoming more and more thoughtful," Shiller said in a low voice.
"It was Venom and Tony who started fighting. They wanted to clean up the crime scene before you got back," Loki replied, also in a hushed tone.
"Alright, I'll indulge them," Shiller said with a roll of his eyes. "Can't let the expectant mother see such a chaotic scene. Let's sit at the bar for a while, tell them to hurry up with the cleanup."
Loki quickly left, and Shiller first showed Harry and Mary around the house. Then they sat by the bar, where Shiller looked at the radiant Mary and said with some emotion.
"People really are built differently. If only Ms. Carter could be as healthy as you."
"Oh, right." Harry suddenly remembered something. He took a gift box out of his luggage and said, "I heard that the Captain's fiancée is pregnant, so we prepared a gift."
"What is it?" Shiller asked. This wasn't considered rude in America since they were going to open the gift in front of everyone anyway.
"A Harper Ferry 1805 model, an American Army handgun, with a gold leaf-covered collector's edition. I found it in my father's collection."
He then opened the gift box. Inside, Shiller saw a very beautiful streamlined handgun with a steel forged barrel and a walnut grips inlaid with gold leaf—and more importantly, it looked brand new, without any signs of use, which was rare for a 17th-century handgun collection.
"My goodness, Steve will go nuts," Peter said. "No one can refuse this handgun."
"That's right," Harry said proudly. "And the most precious thing is, this is a 'peace gun.' It hasn't been fired since it was made, a detail I specifically chose for Captain America."
Now Shiller knew that this gun must have been prepared by Old Osborn.
Steve wasn't really fond of weapons, having actually been in a war and understood the bloodshed and casualties that these things had caused.
But Harry's gun was different on one hand. Its design was far removed from modern pistols—the barrel was longer, and the connective curve to the grip was streamlined. It looked less like a weapon for killing and more like an elegant dinner knife.
Even rarer was the fact that it had never been fired and never harmed anything, which gave Steve no reason to refuse it.
Such a cunning gift could only come from Old Osborn; it seemed that his health was truly faltering, and he had already started paving the way for his son.
Then Harry turned to Peter, pulling another box out of a different suitcase and saying, "The spider that bit you can't be found, but I had the researchers and cleaners catch all the spiders that appeared in our company..."
As he spoke, he opened the box, which was divided into smaller boxes, each containing a spider.
"After looking at it, Peter covered his forehead and said, "I can understand the rest, but why include a bird-eating spider? Do you want it to eat my fingers?"
Harry glanced at the compartment and said, "Ah, sorry. That one's our latest animal experiment. You know there's been a biological riot in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the mutants contacted Osborn Group for research; this is one of the samples they sent over. I thought it might be useful to you, so I took it."
"A biological riot?" Shiller frowned slightly and asked, "Do you know exactly what happened?"
After a moment's thought, Harry said, "The first half was handled by my father, but he's been in poor health lately and hospitalized, so I've only had a few phone calls with them."
"According to them, creatures on several planets in the Andromeda Galaxy underwent strange mutations and became extremely aggressive. The mutants they sent to the planets for resource extraction and sampling were attacked, and they're investigating the incident."
"The mutants don't have many technical means on their side, and they also can't figure out what's going on, so they came to Osborn Group for help. You all know that we do a lot of research in biotechnology. They captured some mutated creatures and sent us the samples, and our lab is currently conducting research."
"This spider is a sample too? Are there bird-eating spiders in the Andromeda Galaxy?"
"No, this spider was just injected with the fluid from the mutant creatures. However, it has passed the observation period and has been deemed normal. I wouldn't have dared to bring it with me otherwise."
Considering that there were so many children here, Shiller still used the Gray Mist to check and found, indeed as Harry had said, that it was just an ordinary bird-eating spider with no mutations or aggressiveness, although it looked terrifying.
Even if it had any aggressiveness, it probably wouldn't withstand a bite from Helen. If things really came to that, Helen could just swallow it later.
Mary sat calmly to one side, clearly unafraid. With concern, she asked Peter, "Are you sure you want to be bitten by a spider again? There are quite a few poisonous ones here."
Before the spiders had been brought over, Peter had been confident, but now he was uncertain.
At the time, the bite had been an accident, and he hadn't even gotten a clear look at the spider, so the psychological burden wasn't as great. But now, the idea of actively seeking another bite made it hard for him to proceed.
The main reason Shiller did not stop him was that if Peter could really attribute the recovery of his superpowers to a spider bite, it would save Shiller a lot of trouble. However, it seemed Peter was having second thoughts.
"I don't think there's any scientific basis for what you're doing," Harry shook his head. "Since some of your abilities have already been restored, that suggests the thing responsible for your recovery isn't the spider venom. Another bite might not recover any more abilities."
Harry's words clearly reminded Peter, and to avoid delving deeper into the topic, Shiller interjected, "We also have a Mutant PhD here who should be familiar with the Andromeda Galaxy situation. Maybe we could ask him to come and talk?"
Just then, Loki returned to the house and said, "The backyard has been cleaned up. Let's not let them play on the trampoline anymore, they got covered in mud. When are we heading to the golf course?"
"Let's go now."
Everyone gathered in front of the Stone House, and to prevent the previous scatterbrained incidents, they used a Teleportation Portal instead, which was also better for the expectant mother.
Of course, Mary saw Carter, who was in the same state, vomiting everything she ate, forced to rely on nutrient fluids to maintain health.
Seeing Carter so miserable, Steve began wavering, but the fact remained that they both wanted children. If they didn't go through with it this time, who could guarantee that next time would be any better? What if they had to suffer through this again?
Mary handed the gift to Steve, who was indeed surprised. He had actually been considering seeking scientific help to see if there might be a technological solution to Carter's problems, and he made a plan with Harry to visit the Osborn Group once their current schedule was over.
Arriving at the golf course, everyone's spirits were lifted. The place was vast and flat, with endless green fairways and rolling hills, and the air was filled with the fresh scent of moist grass.
Stark, Matt, and Nick were keen on playing golf. Although Shiller knew how to play, it wasn't his hobby, and the others were indifferent.
Beast was evidently more interested in the situation of the Andromeda Galaxy and sat in the rest area at the edge of the golf course, discussing the experimental results in front of a floor-to-ceiling window.
"…These data are all perfectly fine," said Harry. "Whether it's blood, body fluids, venom, or cells, there were no anomalies after transplantation. We suspect there might be an issue with the genes of these creatures."
"That's what I was thinking," Dr. Beast added. "If it had been an injection of poison causing the mutation, the Mutants would have certainly noticed sooner. Our technology may not be advanced, but we have diagnostic methods that many humans don't possess."
"Moreover, with the entire Andromeda Galaxy under Magneto's control, who could secretly slip in and inject poison into each animal? It's not just one or two animals revolting, but whole ecosystems across more than twenty planets. It's unlikely that the Behind-the-scenes Manipulator individually modified them—it's more plausible that they spread a virus among them."
"The problem lies in the transmission method," Harry pointed out. "These twenty-plus planets are far apart, and the virus outbreaks seem random. My father tends to believe there is indeed someone orchestrating this behind the scenes, although the contagion spread planet by planet."
Beast fell into deep thought, finding Harry's reasoning sound. Although the Behind-the-scenes Manipulator might not be able to inject every animal with the virus, it was entirely possible to spread the infection on one planet before poisoning another. If done on a planetary scale, it would be much simpler.
"My father also thinks it might be the work of the Three Great Empires," Harry stroked his chin. "I agree. The expansion of the Mutants is a threat to the Three Great Empires, and they surely would do all in their power to disrupt you."
"Of the Three Great Empires, only the Xia Empire specializes in biotechnology, but we can assure it wasn't their doing," Beast said.
What he didn't tell Harry was that they were so confident because the Xia Empire's Queen had been replaced by Mystique, one of their own kind. Of course, they wouldn't be the ones to act.
The other two empires, although technologically advanced, weren't specialized in this area. However, it couldn't be ruled out that they had suddenly made a breakthrough in this technology and were using the Mutants as guinea pigs.
At that thought, Beast suddenly felt inspired. "What if the Kree Empire and Skrull Empire have always wanted to study biotechnology and have been conducting biological experiments throughout the cosmos? Maybe they took this opportunity to test their new bioweapons against the Mutants?"
Harry shook his head. "I think the likelihood of a biological experiment is slim. The researchers from Osborn Group informed me that this is a very mature technology."
"What do you mean?"
"Our comprehensive testing on the biological samples didn't reveal any problems. This suggests that something might be precisely targeting a specific part without contaminating any other areas—it's a sign of advanced technology," explained Harry.
Beast furrowed his brows deeply. If the conclusion from Osborn Group was accurate, then the situation was probably more complicated than he had imagined.
Suddenly, Beast heard Professor X's voice in his mind.
"Hank, I'm afraid you'll need to come here. A Mutant has been infected."