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“Okay, so what else? Mrs Kelly said she wanted us to really dig like real reporters… Find the stuff that people really want to know, so far its reading like a Bruce Banner fan account piece that any 12-year-old could write…” Ned trailed off as he scrolled through another website looking for information.
Their English teacher had decided it would be a good idea to give their class a group journalism assignment that would account for 20% of their overall grade. It was supposed to encourage them to focus not only on the writing, but on the research. Making sure they knew how to find reliable sources and knowing how to properly search for information rather than clicking on the first Wikipedia page they came across and being done with it. It sort of made sense but, given how readily information is available nowadays, it’s kind of hard trying to find obscure facts. Especially when each group had to do their report on a celebrity. Ned, MJ and himself had teamed together and decided to focus on Dr Bruce Banner. World Renowned Physicist.
Peter personally had wanted to do a report on Mr Stark, but MJ had vetoed that. Despite all the changes the man had made to his company – and his personal life - she still didn’t like him. She saw him as an untrustworthy, corporate man. A man who made his billions through war profiteering. A hundred arguments had been on the tip of Peters tongue when they had been deciding on who to write about. But given how new his relationship with MJ was, he didn’t want to add any unnecessary strain. He assumed that given time, she would come around to Mr Stark. He was his mentor after all.
In a mutual effort to avoid an argument, the group had compromised by choosing Bruce Banner.
Not going to lie, it was kind of weird researching a man that he worked with regularly in the labs at the Avengers Compound. It felt like an invasion of the mans privacy. But for the sake of his grade, he had to do it.
Ned had originally suggested simply asking the man himself for some information. They could record it and class it as an actual interview which would definitely score them bonus points, but Peter was hesitant to do anything that might draw them extra attention from their peers.
Instead, he had decided to not bring up the project to anyone at the Compound. Easier said than done since Mr Stark had been making a point of keeping up with what was going on in Peter’s life over the past couple of months.
It had been weird to start with.
A couple of months after he had started having regular lab days with the man, after the Homecoming fiasco - as it had been dubbed by Ned - the chat in the lab had drifted from being strictly about work and superhero personas, to more personal details. About Mr Starks college days with Rhodey, about Peppers nagging, about Peter’s school assignments, his friends. Everything and anything.
It was nice.
The man had even been teasing him about his young-love relationship with MJ. Mr Stark had been there for every step of his relationship so far. From his original crush to the awkward teenage flirting to eventually starting to date – after MJ had asked him out. The strictly mentor-mentee relationship had been developing into something much more familiar. He would almost go as far as saying he had thought of him as something close to a father-figure. Not that he’d ever admit it out loud of course.
“Oh my God.”
MJs exclamation drew him out of his thoughts. Her brow was furrowed as her eyes retraced the words on her screen.
“I think I’ve got the perfect thing. It’s definitely A worthy.”
Peter and Ned shared a look. It was unusual for MJ to sound so invested in something.
“Well, what is it? You can’t just start with something like that then stop. Put us out of our misery!” Ned groaned from his position slouched on the bed.
Peter released a huff of breath as he shuffled over to sit beside MJ, reading over her shoulder. When he realised what he was reading he swallowed uneasily.
“Don’t you think that’s maybe a bit too personal?” he questioned.
“If we want to treat this like proper journalists, then no,” she replied in her usual no nonsense voice.
“Guys, I swear to God. What is it?”
“Bruce Banner can’t have sex.”
Ned almost choked once he processed MJs words. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Well, at least not with another person.”
“How on earth did you work that one out?” Ned questioned again, his eyes darting between MJ and Peter.
“There’s actually a number of reasons. His heartrate is what causes his Hulk-outs so that bits self-explanatory. There’s also the fact that radiation caused his transformation in the first place, so as a result his… you know is radioactive which would be deadly to any partners. Also means that he’s infertile, but then given any partner would die from radiation poisoning I’m gonna assume that’s not overly concerning in the grand scheme of things.”
How MJ could speak about those things with such a no-nonsense attitude was unbelievable. Peter could barely get his mind around it and wasn’t sure he wanted to. He knew doing this project about someone he knew was a bad idea. Unfortunately, Dr. Banner had been one of the only famous people that all three admired. But this had gotten far too personal, far too quickly. He diverted his eyes from the screen, staring a hole into the wall.
“I don’t think we should use that,” he spoke cautiously. “I mean, it feels like we are completely invading his privacy just by knowing that, never mind writing about it. That’s not the sort of thing that should be shared. How did you even find that?”
“Oh, it was buried amongst some of those SHIELD files that Natasha Romanov dumped a while back.”
He hummed in acknowledgement. Glancing over at Ned, he wasn’t surprised to see his best friend still staring up at the ceiling. He could almost hear the gears turning in his head from his spot on the floor. Ned was absentmindedly chewing on his bottom lip, apparently lost in thought.
“Peter?” Neds quiet voice shook as he slowly turned to meet his eyes. He hummed in acknowledgment waiting for the boy to continue. “The spider that bit you. Was it radioactive?”
“I… don’t know. I guessed it might’ve been. Would explain how the whole,” he vaguely gestured at himself, “transformation thing took place.”
He could feel the heavy eyes of MJ and Ned both assessing him. Like they could see through him. He felt his cheeks heating when he realised exactly what they were thinking about. In regard to him. He felt his eyes drift down to his lap before he quickly cleared his throat, returning his gaze to the wall.
“So have you ever checked it out? What if you’re the same? I mean, have you guys….?”
“No, Ned,” he spluttered, feeling heat crawl up his neck at the topic. The truth was he didn’t know. He hadn’t even thought about the spider bite having affected anything like that. He and MJ hadn’t done anything like that yet, but its not to say they hadn’t talked about it. What if Ned was right and he could hurt her? He could see MJ staring resolutely at her laptop screen, as Ned shifted to lean up on his elbows.
“Don’t you think you should look into it?” Ned pushed.
“Where am I supposed to do that Ned? I can’t go to my doctor, I can’t ask Mr Stark. Its not like I’ve got that sort of medical lab equipment just sitting around the apartment.”
“But there’s equipment at the Avengers Compound! Why don’t you just ask Mr Stark for help? Or you could even ask Dr Banner? He would understand.”
“I can’t Ned. I can’t just walk in and ask them for help with that. I mean, in order to even run the tests they’d need… samples… I just can’t do that. Its far too embarrassing and – and personal.”
“So what? You’re going to be celibate for the rest of your life, on the off-chance that you’re radioactive?” MJ sent him an unimpressed glare as she finally shifted her eyes from the screen.
“I don’t know what else to do!” he yelled, hands tugging at his hair. His relationship had been going really well with Mr Stark. He couldn’t ruin it now. He’s not sure he could cope with going back to having no male role-model in his life. And he certainly couldn’t ask Dr Banner. For starters, he wasn’t close enough to the man to be asking for such personal favours. He also knows fine well that if he asked Dr Banner, then Mr Stark would end up finding out. The doctor didn’t like having secrets. Especially from his self-dubbed ‘science-bro’.
He could feel two sympathetic stares being aimed in his direction. His heart was racing in his chest. The reality that he might not be able to have the life he had expected weighing heavily on him. Obviously, being Spider-Man, he never expected a regular white picket fence life, with a 9 to 5 job, but he always figured he’d eventually get married and have a family. Was that off the table now? Was he destined to grow old alone? Was May never going to get the grandchildren she always joked about?
“Why not do it yourself?” MJ questioned quietly.
“I don’t have the lab equipment. I’m not even sure where I’d start if I did…”
“But you already said the Compound has the equipment? You could test it all yourself, the others don’t need to know. I’m pretty sure between the three of us, we can work out what you need to test.”
He paused, picking at a piece of loose skin around his thumb nail. That… might actually work. But…
“How would I manage to do it in secret though? Mr Stark and Dr Banner couldn’t find out and they are always in the lab.”
“We could set up a distraction. Invite us to the Compound and we could interview them while you run your tests?”
“Yeah, tell them its for a school project. We keep them out of your way, while you get answers. We can work out what needs to be tested beforehand so once you get into the lab, its all go.” Ned added, nodding as the plan began to form.
“Although it would need to be fresh samples you tested. To take into consideration any radiation decay,” MJ intoned, staring him straight in the eyes.
“Oh God…” he groaned. He let his head thud back against the wall. This couldn’t be happening.
“So you just want to test for 2 things,” MJ took control of the room again. “First if its radioactive and second if its fertile. I’m pretty sure the second can be checked just using the fancy microscopes?” he nodded absently. They’d covered it in biology recently. “I’m not exactly sure about the best way for testing for the radioactivity though. Suppose it depends on what equipment Stark has available.”
“There are tonnes of equipment in the lab to test for radioactive material. Even the smallest traces. It would probably be best to crosscheck using different machinery anyway. That way we could be sure.” He can’t believe he is seriously thinking about doing this. It would be possible to do, just tricky keeping his mentor and idol distracted for long enough.
“Okay, so what about this Friday when you go for your usual lab visit?” Ned had moved to sit on the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “Get in touch with Mr Stark to arrange the interview with himself and Dr Banner? Once we get started, we can send you to go grab something and you can get everything done. We can just keep talking and firing questions at them until you’re back. How long would we need to stall them for anyway? Would 20 minutes be enough?”
“Well, I mean once I actually get into the lab the tests shouldn’t take any longer than about 15 to 20 minutes, I think. So probably no longer than 30?”
“Ooh, you got a quick release Tiger?” MJ joked.
He didn’t think it was possible for his cheeks to grow any redder, but as always, he was proven wrong.
“I.. Uh-I didn’t… I, uh-“ he spluttered trying to think of an appropriate response.
“Relax. I’m kidding,” she smirked at him. “Sorry, I shouldn’t joke about these things. We’ll keep them distracted for however long is necessary. I still think you should just ask them for help, but as alternatives go, this seems like a decent plan.”
Nodding slowly, he released a slow breath. They had a plan. Not the most ideal, but one that would hopefully work. It would give him answers to questions that just an hour ago had never even crossed his mind. The results of the tests could end up altering his plans for his future before they’d even begun. Biting his lip, he tried to shake the negative thoughts from his head. It wouldn’t do him any good to get wound up in the what ifs.
The silence grew almost deafening as they all stared off into space. Lost in their own thoughts. He’s not sure how long he sat staring at the wall, before Ned cleared his throat.
“So, will we keep searching for something else to put into our actual report? Or we could take the night off since we will end up having an actual interview at the end of this that we could use? Whose up for some video games?”
xXxXxXx
Friday afternoon found Peter wedged tightly in the backseat between Ned and MJ.
Mr Stark and Dr Banner had easily agreed to the interview when Peter had spun them a tale about the benefits it would have on their grade. He felt bad about lying to them. Not that it was an outright lie, Dr Banners side of the interview would definitely help them with their source evidence. It was just hard when he heard the emotion seeping into Mr Starks voice when he acknowledged how happy he was that Peter was asking him for help with school work. But it was a necessary evil to get this done.
He needed to know what was happening in his own body.
Happy hadn’t so much as smiled during the entire journey. Not that that was unusual. Instead, the head of security had been shooting the trio withering looks through the mirror. Peter was thankful that Ned had managed to keep up a babbling stream of thoughts throughout the journey. Otherwise, his own silence might have been noticeable.
As it was, he could feel Happy’s heavy gaze landing on him through the mirror every few miles. He was only just holding himself together and not falling apart with anxiety. MJs fierce grip on his thigh was a reminder of the restlessness he had felt the minute he had sat down. The school hadn’t even been out of sight before MJ had put an end to his knee jerking. The skin around his thumb however had seen better days. He’d been picking it constantly since he arrived at school that morning. A nervous tick he’s not sure he’d ever grow out of.
As the Compound finally came into view, Peter was surprised to see both Mr Stark and Dr Banner waiting out front for them. He supposed it made sense. Usually, he would just meet them in the lab but their interview would be taking place elsewhere, so they’d probably just head straight there. Besides Mr Stark wasn’t a fan of randomers walking around the Compound, even if those randomers were Peter’s best friend and girlfriend.
The three friends quickly shared a knowing glance as the car pulled to a stop and with a deep breath and after a subtle nod of his head, they exited.
Peter shoved his shaking hands into his hoodie pocket as he approached his mentor. He honestly felt guilty for lying to the man, but he couldn’t face the embarrassment of outright asking the man for help with this. Instead, he would have to deal with the shame he was feeling. Once they were close enough, Mr Stark and Dr Banner welcomed the trio and started guiding them inside.
“I have to say, I get roped into doing interviews all the time, but this is the first one I’m not actively avoiding,” Mr Stark spoke happily as they walked along the empty corridors. “I’m honestly honoured that you guys thought of us to do this stuff. I know usually these reports are boring as hell and supposed to be done about parents or something…or so I’m told anyway.”
He could feel his ears turning red as he heard the pride escaping from his mentors voice. All the man wanted to do was help him out with some stupid, made-up school assignment. The minute Peter had asked him about it, his mentor had jumped at the opportunity.
“Well, you are both two of the worlds leading scientists. I mean, that’s pretty inspirational. And as well as your scientific prowess you are both also part of the Avengers! What’s not to be inspired by?”
Dr Banner turned to smile at him in response, showing his thanks. “We figured we could do the interviews in the press lounge? The one we hang about in before we usually do the interviews. It’s much less formal and the chairs are a lot comfier!”
He watched as Ned and MJ both nodded their agreement, before walking in ahead of him through the door to the lounge area. A door to their left would take them into the press room, but they avoided that and instead walked towards the couches in the centre of the room. There was a small kitchenette to the right with a stocked fridge and bottles of water lying out on the counter. A coffee table sat between two of the couches which would give them some space to set up their equipment. Ned had figured to make this as real as possible that they would need to bring some AV equipment to record the interview properly.
Peter glanced around the room nervously while Ned began setting up the camera and microphones, and MJ pulled out a list of pre-prepared questions to ask the duo. He could feel Mr Starks eyes on him so reluctantly turned to face the man. The concern was oozing from the mans eyes as he joined him off to the side of the room.
“You okay, Pete?”
“Yeah, I’m good, Mr Stark. Just, you know, big project. Need to keep our grades up and all that,” he shrugged, hoping it came off as convincing. It wasn’t exactly unusual for him to get anxious about his grades, although it was usually because of his Spider-Man activities getting in the way.
“You sure? You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
“Of course. I know. I will. I mean, I do.”
Chuckling, the man gave his shoulder a squeeze before heading over to sit beside Dr Banner on the couch across from Ned and MJ. Peter gingerly sat down beside MJ, her hand automatically moving to grip onto his. A small sign of solidarity that meant the world. She knew how nervous he was about this. Worried about what the answers might prove. Or the fear that he will be found out by his two idols.
She squeezed his hand tightly, a silent promise that she would stay with him no matter what happened in the lab. They had spent hours talking about it the previous night. He had been worried that he wouldn’t be good enough for her if he did have issues. She had put an end to that line of thought pretty quickly, assuring him that his ability to have sex and/or have children in the future would not impact how she felt about him. As she said she “fell for Peter Parker, not Peter Parker’s dick”.
“Right, I think that’s us all set up,” Ned spoke up for the first time since they had entered the room. “If everyone’s ready, shall we get started? We have a lot of questions to get through.”
After everyone had nodded, Ned started the recording then proceeded to give Peter a very pointed look. Taking the hint, he pulled his backpack towards him and started to hunt through it for a moment. Part of the ruse to pretend that he’s left something important elsewhere in the Compound. He just hopes they buy it. He’s not exactly giving an Oscar winning performance.
Glancing up to shoot an apologetic look at Mr Stark, he spoke hurriedly. “I’m gonna run down to the lab quickly to get some more webbing. I thought I had spare, but I think I used it during the week. You guys just start the interview and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Picking up his backpack he started heading to the door before anyone had a chance to respond.
xXxXxXx
He watched Peter running from the room and couldn’t help the scowl that appeared on his face. The boy had been acting weird since he arrived. He knew that this project was worth a large percentage of their grade, but Peter wasn’t the type to get so worked up about things like that.
He’d been ecstatic when the boy had called him to ask about setting up the interview. Pepper and Rhodey liked to joke about him being wrapped around his protegees little finger, but in all honesty they weren’t wrong. It meant so much to him that the young hero not only wanted to spend time with him, but also wanted to include him in a video project about people that inspire them.
He and Bruce had spent some time working out the best location for the interview. They had originally thought about just using one of the living areas, but they were worried about footage getting out and didn’t want to risk any security breaches that it might cause. Instead, they opted for the press lounge. The area that’s restricted to the press, but that was just as comfortable to wait in as the living areas.
Peter’s friends were still sitting on the couch across from them. Both shifting slightly, which he assumed was down to nerves. Peter had been acting as a form of buffer between them and the two scientists. Neither of them seemed to want to make eye contact now that they were alone. He could feel the nerves rolling off of Bruce beside him. The only reason the man had agreed was because of Peter. He usually chose to keep himself to himself and wouldn’t normally dream of doing a personal interview.
Clearing his throat, he addressed the two teenagers across from him, “Is he ok? He seems a bit stressed today.”
MJ, Peters girlfriend, sent him a tight lipped smile and quickly nodded, “Yeah, he’s fine. Just a long day at school.”
He could tell they were keeping something from him, but he’s been trying to make sure Peter had his privacy, so he let it go for now. “Fair enough, I can understand that. So shall we get on with it?”
Peter had been gone for more than 15 minutes.
If he had been going to the lab to get web fluid, he should have been back in 10 max. He also noticed that the kids best friend, Ned, kept checking his watch when he thought he wasn’t looking. They had dutifully answered a number of questions before he felt his patience running out. MJ looked down to consult her list of questions to ask the next one when he interrupted her.
“FRIDAY, where is Peter?”
“He is in the bathroom in the lab, Boss.”
“Oh ok. He’s not sick is he?”
“Unsure. His heart rate appears to be elevated and has been since he entered the compound this afternoon. Sensors detect it raised further once he entered the bathroom. As I do not have cameras in the area, I am unable to determine his current state.”
Well, that’s not good. He thought the kid looked off earlier but hadn’t even thought about the kid being sick. That would explain him being worried about his grades if he didn’t think he would be able to complete it.
“Can you ask him if he’s ok?”
“Negative, Boss. Mr Parker muted me the minute he walked into the bathroom,” his AI spoke in a sulking tone. She never liked being told to go on mute. As far as he was aware, Peter had never asked FRIDAY to do so either. The thought was doing nothing to help ease his concern.
Clapping his hands together, he stood to go find the boy himself. “I’ll be back soon, I’m just gonna go check – “
“NO!” MJ and Ned shouted in unison, both standing from their spots.
Pausing, he raised an eyebrow at the pair who had moved to block his path to the door. It would appear his hunch earlier had been right. They were definitely hiding something from him.
“So… who’s going to fill me in on what you guys are actually up to? This isn’t part of your project, is it?”
The two teenagers had a silent conversation in front of him. Obviously, trying to decide how much to tell him. Unluckily for them, he wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit today. He was going to find out if his kid was ok. One way or another.
“I’m gonna make it easy for you. You either tell me the truth, the whole truth, or I am going to go find Peter to see what he is up to myself.”
Sharing a final guilty look, MJ gave a nod of her head and exhaled heavily as she and Ned returned to their previous seats.
“We are doing a journalist report for school. But we have been writing it about Dr Banner,” she spared a fleeting glance at the man, “We were tasked with finding at least one fact that nobody would know and we didn’t think too much about it. Just figured we’d find some science breakthrough you made that people forgot about or something, but I ended up coming across some of the old leaked SHIELD files that mentioned how you… well, how you are unable to have kids…” her cheeks flushed pink as she glanced away, and Tony could feel Bruce tensing beside him. He knew about that, but it had been kept on the down-low. It was definitely Bruce’s personal business and he’d be having FRIDAY wipe that info from the internet as soon as they were done here.
“Okay…” Bruce drew out quietly. “But what does that have to do with… oh.”
“Oh? What’s oh?” he prodded. Glancing between Bruce and the teenagers. He knew he was missing something. The look of horror on Bruce’s face was scaring him. “You’re freaking me out here Bruce.”
“He – Peter – then started to wonder if that meant he couldn’t have kids either. Or that, you know, if he would… harm… anyone that he… well, you know.” Ned explained, staring resolutely at a spot on the floor. “But you can’t tell him we told you. He’s going to kill us. He didn’t want you guys to find out, so we figured that since all the equipment that would be needed is in the lab here that he could go run some tests while we kept you guys distracted.”
“So he’s going to the lab to check if… Okay. That’s… not what I was expecting. Huh.”
Realisation suddenly dawned on him about why Peter had been so nervous. And what his elevated heart rate was. Oh God. He didn’t need to have that picture in his mind. Nope. Now he was the one feeling sick. He slowly sunk back into his seat, shaking his head to dislodge the thought.
“He knows what tests he needs to carry out?” Bruce queried quietly with the duo.
Both nodded silently, “We looked it up and he has a note of everything and what equipment to use,” Ned explained.
“You guys really came planned for this…” he mused.
“You can’t tell Peter,” MJ stated. “Please, you know how embarrassed he will be. It was bad enough when he was talking to us. He’s been acting funny around us since we talked about it. If he knew that you guys knew… it’d be horrible.”
He exchanged a silent look with Bruce as the two came to an agreement. “Fine,” the two teenagers visibly deflated in relief. “But, and this is a big but. If the results come back bad, you have to tell us. There might be things we can do to help him.”
“Agreed,” the two responded in unison.
A collective breath was taken by everyone in the room before he shifted around in his seat to get comfortable again.
“I know you don’t need them, but since Peter will be expecting us to still be interviewing later shall we get on with the questions? And maybe edit out the last couple of minutes if he wants to see the footage.”
xXxXxXx
Glancing at the clock in the lab, he had been away for just over half an hour. Mr Stark had to be wondering what was keeping him by now. But he only had one test left to finish.
It had taken him longer than he would have liked to gather his sample when he arrived earlier. His nerves of being caught and fear of the results hindering his progress. But once he had that sorted, he had quickly made it to the lab and had released a long-held breath when the first couple tests proved that he wasn’t radioactive. He didn’t need to worry about harming anyone or anything like that. The last few tests were all about fertility. He had already seen that there was activity within the sample, but he was now just waiting for the DNA analysis to finish. It probably would have went quicker with FRIDAYs help, but he had been forced to mute her earlier when she kept asking how she could provide assistance.
He knew that the spider bite had altered his DNA. Mr Stark had taken him to Dr Cho for a full physical not long after Homecoming to gain some insight into his enhanced healing and increased metabolism. It was the changes in his DNA that gave him all these powers, but he wasn’t sure if the changes would make him incompatible with regular human DNA or if there would be any issues with it.
The timer on the wall said the results would be done in 2 minutes.
He turned and quickly grabbed a batch of web fluid he had made the other week and flung it into his backpack. It’s unlikely his mentor would ask to see it, but it helped to have his alibi just in case. He figured that they should be about halfway through their list of questions by now.
With 30 seconds left on the timer, he wandered back over to the machine to view the results. Once he read over the data, the remaining tension that had been sitting in his shoulders left.
He could still have kids one day.
It wasn’t like he planned on starting a family tomorrow, but growing up, especially as an only child, he had always imagined having kids when he was older. Two or more so they’d be able to play together and have someone to share their secrets with.
It looked like he might not even pass the mutated genes on either, which would be even better. But even if he did, he would find a way to deal with it. Grinning widely, he saved all the results to his USB stick and then wiped the results and any traces of the tests from FRIDAYs servers. Just because she was muted didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t watching.
After another check of the lab to make sure he had removed any evidence of his tests, he grabbed his backpack and ran back round towards the press lounge.
He paused outside the door to catch his breath before he slowly nudged it open and trudged over to drop down next to MJ on the couch. She turned to glance at him warily, but he responded with a bright smile and subtle nod of his head. She quickly returned the smile, before returning her attention to the two men across from them.
He could feel Mr Starks gaze on him, eventually strong enough for him to meet the intense stare, but the man just smiled gently at him before adding to the story that Bruce was in the middle of telling.
Peter was still wearing a small smile when Mr Stark finished answering his final question. All the tension he had been carrying with him over the past week was gone now. He was finally able to relax again.
“You get on okay Pete? I was almost going to come track you down earlier,” Mr Stark joked as they were packing away the equipment.
He froze for a split second before smiling at his mentor. “Yeah, it was fine. Sorry, you know how it is, easy to get distracted in the lab and all that.” He shrugged as he lifted the camera bag over his shoulder.
“Course. As long as your good Underoos.”
The man leant forward to wrap him in a half hug. The position gave Peter a clear view of MJ and Ned laughing as they tried to fit the mics back into the tiny bags. He was so lucky to have them both in his life. Hopefully, he would still have them for years to come.
“I am. I really am, Mr Stark.”