"His condition is not good. Aside from the risk of infection from the jumble of wires he messes with in his own body, he is already old, and recovery ability is not as strong as a young person's. There is a high risk of leaving sequela after being injured. Even if he can survive the infection and inflammation, his bodily functions have already been severely damaged. I suggest you ask him if he has any last wishes..."
Stark pounds the table, causing a loud noise that startles Strange. The cunning doctor retorts, "You better make sure the payment for my diagnosis matches your irritable temper."
"I assure you, your bravery matches my power," Schiller says to Strange.
Stark looks at Obadiah lying on the operating table, whose pupils starting to dilate. An extreme emotion engulfs Stark, as he can't understand why Obadiah would do such a thing.
"I always want to prove to Howard ,the biotechnology I propose is not worthless, that it can bring immense power to people. Even if their bodies are aging, they can still perfectly control the armor through bodily strength..."
"But you're dying!" Stark shrieks angrily, "What could be more important than life?!"
"Howard dies before me..."
Stark falls silent, and he hears Obadiah sigh, "He deserves to die early, but it's a pity he dies early…"
A complex emotion rises within Stark. He knows that Obadiah and Howard's relationship is not as perfect and harmonious as many imagine, perfect partners or others.
When you work with a peerless genius, it is hard not to feel jealous.Perhaps Obadiah also thinks about proving that he can succeed without Howard.
But without Howard, he doesn't know who he has to prove himself to.
Obadiah is old. Perhaps he also knows that if he doesn't do this, he will not have another chance.
There has to be a Stark who understands that he is right. If the senior can't, then the junior one can.
"I will find a way to save him!" Stark jumps to another lab table and frantically searches for information. He has no time to think about Obadiah stealing his Arc Reactor core. Over the years, Obadiah has been almost his only family. And now that he is dying, Stark doesn't care about anything else.
"A cardiac stent! Make him a cardiac stent!" Stark says.
Strange shakes his head, "You really have no medical knowledge. His heart is about to fail, and that's not a problem a stent can solve."
"Then make more!"
"Unless you can create a new mechanical heart for him, his current one cannot fulfill the function of supplying blood to his body. At most, he will die from heart failure within three hours."
"Are you just a doctor who only knows throw a wet blanket?!" Stark roars in anger. Strange becomes even angrier and starts shouting, "You rich man, you waste my whole afternoon with just one sentence! I'm just telling the truth! He's beyond saving! Don't treat doctors as gods. Even if God comes, he can't save him after poking seven or eight holes in his own heart!"
Schiller pats Strange's shoulder and mediates, "Can't you see the situation now? This billionaire, who is now so poor that he only has money, is willing to pay any price to save his uncle. As long as you can come up with a plan, the price can be whatever you want."
Strange rubs his temples, "Both of us are doctors , don't you think I want to make that money? But if there is a medical method that can save him, then there is no one in this world who can't be saved."
"What did you just say??" Stark suddenly turns and asks.
Strange freezes and says, "What did I say?"
"Ye...A mechanical heart! Create a new heart for him!"
Schiller glances at his watch, "You only have three hours."
After saying that, he glances at Obadiah again.
"This is the estimate under ideal conditions. I'm afraid that once it goes beyond two hours, even with a new heart, his whole body dies due to ischemia."
Stark doesn't say anything. Suddenly, he becomes quiet, as if in an instant, his brain cursed by knowledge starts working frantically with all its threads.
"This is absurd! You want to replace a living person's heart with a machine-made one! What about rejection?" Strange gasps.
Stark immediately turns around and gives him a punch, and Schiller drags him out of the lab. Strange rubs his nose and murmurs, "Damn rich guy..."
"Stop complaining. Think about the fee he'll pay you . Do you feel any better?"
"Will he really pay that much?"
"He is Stark. Look at the ground beneath your feet. One tile here could be equivalent to your monthly salary."
Strange, unusually silent, seems unaffected by the imminent large fee that is to come.
After a while, Stark suddenly rushes out and urges, "I have an idea! Yes, I have a solution! The Arc Reactor, that model..."
"I need an assistant, come quickly! Hurry!"
Strange sits still, and Schiller has to stand up and say, "I'm coming, hopefully it won't screw the bulbs again."
Entering the lab, the inside is in chaos by Stark. Schiller steps over scattered files and documents on the floor. Stark begins tinkering on a laboratory bench filled with various complex instruments, saying as he operates, "That model not only has valuable energy reactions, but its structure is highly compatible with the human body. As for rejection..."
Stark's hands suddenly stop. He leans on the table and lowers his head, whispering, "I almost died from rejection as well, perhaps it's retribution."
"Don't think about your fatalism." Schiller glances at Obadiah.
He seems to still have some consciousness, but excessive blood loss renders him unable to speak. He doesn't look at Stark, just stares at the lab bench.
Perhaps young Obadiah also stands aside like this, watching Howard enthusiastically busy around the lab bench. Back then, they could experiment together all night and then discuss how these inventions would change the world over breakfast.
In the past, Howard was full of enthusiasm and ambition. He was an unparalleled genius, while Obadiah was more like a shadow of a genius. Howard was destined to change the world; Obadiah just wanted to use his abilities to make his own life better.
Obadiah feels his whole body heating up, a warm flow emanating from his heart and spreading through his limbs. In a haze, he sees countless scenes playing before his eyes.
Howard died too early, but Obadiah is grateful Howard died early because it allows him to have a wonderful friendship to remember before dying. It is the most glorious and passionate period of his life.
A behemoth rises in his hands, eventually dominating the world.
He thanks Howard for dying early, allowing their friendship to never gradually wear out amidst the mundane changes of life. Even at the moment of death, it appears there are no regrets at all.
"You need to hurry." Schiller looks at Obadiah and reminds, "We made some miscalculations. You have at most an hour and a half. He has lost consciousness."
Stark turns around in panic and pleads, "No!! Wait, wait... Don't,how could he..."
"Just like you before, the will to survive is crucial. Once it's gone, the body will deteriorate at an unimaginable speed."
Stark tightly holds the parts in his hands. He says nothing, turns around, and continues with the experiment.
In Schiller's mind, he asks the symbiote, "Can't you regenerate his heart?"
"No, his heart is missing something. It needs the symbiote to sustain him. Without me, he would die."
Schiller recalls that it seems to be the same in the comic books. Old Eddie relies on Venom to transform cells into his own body parts, and without Venom, he would die.
"If have the parts, I can be combined," the symbiote says again.
Schiller says to Stark, "You can try to create the parts. I can combine them with organic tissue using reconstruction methods, so there's no need for fixing or stitching."
Stark shows Schiller a pen and a blueprint, "The structure of the Arc Reactor can be applied to the heart. Look here, we can replace the entire left ventricle, reinforce the myocardium here, and install an artificial cardiac pump here..."
Schiller calls Strange in. Strange looks at the blueprint and says, "Theoretically, it might be possible. But you'd better not to do it. The combination of the human body and metal poses great risks, which has been an unresolved problem in the medical field. Besides, you're not even a doctor. Even if you manage to save him temporarily, maintaining the parts and dealing with metal aging will be issues..."
Schiller reminds, "Obadiah seems to have been studying bio-mechanics. He must have useful data. Jarvis, can you locate where Obadiah conducted his research?"
Jarvis buzzes for a moment and then says, "Calculating... locating... location found. Stark Industries' former site, also the former Stark Automotive Group."
"Storage device detected... The data hasn't been uploaded. Please wait. I'm using physical cracking..."
A few minutes later, a mech flies in, holding a heavy computer in its hands. Stark pulls out a disk and inserts it into the computer. Soon, Jarvis says, "Data encrypted... Decrypting... Decryption complete... All data uploaded."
Stark quickly turns to his mainframe, and in the moment he opens the screen, he freezes.
It is filled with countless data and blueprints, which Schiller can't understand what they say. After a while, Stark steps back two steps and says, "Maybe he's right, he's right..."
"He finds another way, completely different from the mechanized armor..."
"You're running out of time," Schiller alarms.
"No, now I only need half an hour. No, no, no, 20 minutes. This data is all ready. Jarvis, start simulating immediately. Let's start by constructing this model..."
An hour later, Stark, Schiller, and Strange walk out of the lab, all exhausted. Strange has blood all over his hands, and he sighs, "How can there be such a thing in this world? You really make a heart out of a pile of junk, and it manages to beat successfully. Oh my God..."
Schiller isn't better either. Performing a heart transplant is physically demanding, and his chest is soaked in blood.
Stark leans against the wall and slowly sits down. He says, "Am I really just like my father? Blindness, arrogance, stubbornness..."
"No..."
Stark looks up at Schiller, who is speaking.
"You're worse than your father."