Chapter 223: Morning and Night

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 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."