Ch57. New Extremis

"He doesn't really like me, does he?" Clint plainly spoke, staring at Tony's retreating back.

"I don't think you are important enough for him to put in the effort to actively dislike you." Natasha answered as she sat down opposite him while putting on the table tray with two cups of coffee... she knew Tony would retreat to his workshop the second he was able to. It was such a natural Tony-like thing to be a total impolite ass when dealing with people he didn't care about... and some refreshments.

Clint snorted, "Well, I have no idea if that is better or worse."

"Eh, you will survive. You didn't need Tony Stark's approval till now, you don't need it from now on either." Natasha shrugged, eating a cookie from the tray.

They made these together with Tony and with each attempt, the cookies were getting better! The current version was just a bit too crispy and burnt while Natasha also had a gut feeling they forgot to add some ingredient but they were still edible so... they counted it as a personal victory.

"Nat," Clint helplessly sighed, "Of course, I care. You are his fiancee. If nothing goes awry between you, you will marry that asshole."

"In that case, I think you should start by stopping calling him an asshole." Natasha chuckled. "You should be actually grateful to him, you know?"

"What for?" Clint looked almost offended at the notion.

"Let's just say the whereabouts of your family were not as big of a secret as you thought since there were a few offhand mentions of it on the SHIELD servers. Tony discreetly deleted them." Natasha said as if she was not speaking about hacking one of the most secure computer networks in the world.

Clint had no idea how to react to that.

On one hand, yes, that was awfully nice of the jerk he just met. On another... he was just told the SHIELD servers were compromised more than anybody thought if Stark could just browse through them at his leisure.

Clint felt conflicted.

'Meh, I am not working right now. Let's just forget this conversation ever happened.' He eventually decided.

He did owe Stark at least that much...

...

After Clint's visit, life went on with peaceful normalcy.

Natasha continued training and learning magics that would help in infiltration and assassination while Tony worked on his own research project.

Hannah Mayers, aka Maya Hansen, was also reaching the competition of all the available tests for the unstable Extremis but that was fine.

Tony finally knew enough about Mystic Arts after his breakthrough that he was able to connect Extremis to a different power source than the usual dimension.

The new Extremis was charged by a person's soul which meant there were no overheating problems or spontaneous combustion. In fact, the new Extremis provided nothing but healing the body.

Using the soul as a power bank was not dangerous. Souls were one of the most indestructible things Tony was aware of.

Souls had a core and shell... and that was all the texts of Kamar Taj had on the matter... and Tony was using the power generated by the core, forming the shell. In the texts, it was referred to as Spiritual Power.

Normal people didn't have much of it but it was enough to power up the healing of their bodies. There wasn't really any dangerous effect on the soul either. The Spiritual Power regenerated almost overnight because of how little a regular person had.

Tony however did downgrade the new Extremis a lot from its initial version. He didn't intend to make superhumans. His goal was to heal perfectly normal people and have them stay perfectly normal afterward.

Fortunately for Tony, the solution presented itself.

Helen Cho finally put forward her application for research funds and Tony readily accepted, planning to help her invent her healing cradle and make it the only device capable of administering Extremis.

He didn't need to worry about somebody misusing the technology or recreating it with what he had in mind.

Tony planned to design the cradles in such a way that they will have 'mystical' components that will be unable to be replicated by normal science and to use the cradle, 'batteries' only Tony could provide would be needed so stealing a cradle would also be meaningless.

Not that Tony was naive enough to think the people won't try to either replicate the technology or steal it. But in any case... their loss.

In the past, Helen's cradle could heal the body by itself through pure science. Heck, it even made an entire body for Ultron which gave birth to Vision. But that was mostly possible only because of the power stone powering the process and Thor's Frankenstein bullshittery.

Maybe it was a dick move to stop Helen from reaching that stage before she could even contemplate it and with that, cause that technology to never see the light of the day again, but Tony really didn't want all the 'bad' guys to have a device that could endlessly heal their wounds.

Helen's healing cradle was simply far too hard to regulate and far too easily misused.

The Extremis Cradle, on the other hand, had the perfect balance of a controllable power source and components others would be unable to acquire. It was safe and it was also totally unusable out of Tony's hands.

Tony would give the general populace access to the healing prowess of these cradles but he will never let this technology slip his hands.

Was it selfish and greedy?

Pfft, he was already born selfish.

As for greed... everybody did the exact same thing, not letting special technologies and discoveries be widely known and available so why should Tony act differently?

If Pym can refuse to reveal the way to make the Pym particles, why should Tony be the benevolent guy and reveal how to replicate the fruits of his own labor?

Advancement of the human race?

Well, fuck that.

Wakanda shits on that. SHIELD shits on that. America shits on that. Almost everybody shat on that!

Why should Tony start? What benefits were there for him?

Yes, benefits!

Because that is the only thing that drives the human race forward. Not love. Not kindness. But benefits.

Give people something out of love and kindness, they will be grateful but they will forget about it soon enough and probably even trash-talk you for not giving more.

Commendations to the rare exceptions but that was the sad and harsh truth.

Give people something because it benefits you and them, and they will remember you and love you for it even if it will cost them.

Tony realized in his past life that the more he gave to others, the more he spent his time making the lives of others easier with his technology at his own expense, the more people demanded out of him. It was shortly after Thanos's snap so the world was in peril and Tony decided to make his new technologies either free or reduce their price a lot, losing a fortune in the process.

The people received free things but they always wanted more.

There were even politicians asking him why he doesn't do more. Why he doesn't try harder for the world.

While Tony was trying to set the world on the right track again, these wastes of perfectly fine air had their fat asses planted on a creaking chair and ran their mouths at him, criticizing that he was not doing enough when they did not contribute shit to the improvement of the situation.

Such was human nature.

So, no. Tony did not plan to let Helen's scientific cradle be invented. His Extremis Cradle was enough to cure people of diseases and injuries for a price.

The other greedy assholes would simply have to suck it up.