Marvel: A Lazy-Ass Superman Chapter 664: The Aftermath of a Strategic Retreat

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That trip to the police station turned out to be even more rewarding than Henry had expected.

The most obvious benefit was that all those people who used to come around causing trouble seemed to have vanished overnight.

Well, everyone except that brat.

The kid seemed determined to pick a fight with both Henry and Katie. He'd practically bring his own lunch just to keep showing up and making trouble.

The reason for such a dramatic difference was, of course, Norman Osborn's intervention.

Although the business titan never made any public statements, everyone had been calculating how to get their hands on Henry Brown's technology—whether through goodwill, coercion, or outright threats.

Then Norman Osborn suddenly stepped in and pulled Henry out of trouble.

To outside observers, that could only mean one thing: Osborn had already obtained what he wanted and was still digesting it. More importantly, he had no intention of allowing anyone else to get involved.

If the technology was already in Oscorp's hands, then Henry Brown himself was no longer particularly important.

And if someone managed to obtain the same thing from Henry afterward, it would simply mean competing directly against Oscorp on the same playing field.

For Norman Osborn, his earlier silence had been a way of teaching this young man—who had quietly pressured him—a lesson. The previous level of harassment had been acceptable.

But once Henry was arrested and became entangled in a mutant terrorist attack targeting the United Nations Summit of World Leaders, the situation changed completely.

The technology Norman had acquired enjoyed no legal protection whatsoever.

Henry Brown could hand it over to a second person, a third person, or anyone else he pleased.

At that point, the patent battle would become an endless war of lawsuits.

In other words, Norman had no choice but to make his position clear or suffer far greater economic losses.

And once he did so, the everyday troubles surrounding Henry naturally disappeared—unless Norman wanted to spend additional resources maintaining them.

It wasn't really a matter of who used whom or who outmaneuvered whom.

It was simply the optimal choice given the circumstances.

---

Tony Stark's lawyer, on the other hand, had genuinely surprised Henry.

He'd originally assumed he would have to spend several days in custody, wait for everyone else to remain silent, and only then seek Stark's help.

As for repayment...

He could always give Tony a proper shock later by showing him a self-learning artificial intelligence built upon an entirely new algorithmic framework.

Recently, Tony's AI, Alby, had been performing rather well in terms of iteration and learning efficiency.

Unfortunately, its greetings had become increasingly smug.

Part of that was because Henry had been distracted by the Norman Osborn affair and hadn't fully worked through some critical mathematical problems.

It was about time he showed Tony what a real AI looked like.

Seven days later, Selene departed.

Maria Thomson returned.

Life resumed as though nothing had happened.

---

The subsequent developments were revealed through media reports.

First, the world's number one terrorist, Magneto, had been imprisoned in a special facility.

The authorities appeared intent on keeping him there until the day he died.

Led by Professor X, the X-Men had played a major role in protecting world leaders and were once again publicly praised and commended.

Of course, judging by the reluctant expression on the President's face, nobody would believe there wasn't some unpresentable political maneuvering happening behind the scenes.

Senator Kelly—the former champion of the Mutant Registration Act—had undergone a particularly interesting change in attitude.

Not only had he withdrawn his support for the legislation, but he had also begun actively advocating for mutant rights and promoting a more tolerant environment for mutants living in modern society.

Could it be that he hadn't escaped his destined fate after all?

Had Mystique replaced him, just like in the movie?

Still, Henry had no intention of running up to the man and trying to prove whether he was really a shapeshifter.

As long as Kelly didn't start proposing an Alien Registration Act, Henry was satisfied.

---

Life seemed to have returned to normal.

Only one small flaw remained.

And according to what Henry had heard, the reason he'd been arrested in the first place was because that troublesome kid had reported him.

As a result, Henry decided to proactively solve the problem.

The first step was understanding the boy's motivation.

Was someone pulling the strings behind the scenes?

And if so, who?

There was no such thing as love without reason, nor hatred without cause.

Henry found it difficult to believe that anyone would continue fixating on him after the Alzheimer's drug issue had already been resolved.

Even S.H.I.E.L.D. or other intelligence agencies wouldn't rely on some underage troublemaker.

Minors were far too unstable.

Unless the child had never been allowed near actual decision-making and was merely being used as a disposable tool.

But if that were the case, once those agencies withdrew their support, the kid should effectively be out of a job and stop causing trouble.

Unless there were other benefits involved.

Yet Henry was confident he had hidden his more sensitive secrets extremely well.

And those weren't games a brat like this was qualified to play.

Anyone who dared touch that territory needed to be prepared for complete and irreversible elimination.

In short, Henry couldn't find a logical explanation for the boy's behavior.

Which meant he needed more intelligence.

---

To solve the problem, Henry designed a third-generation auxiliary machine.

Its codename was Sparrow.

He referred to it as a "quasi-auxiliary machine" because it could operate independently and didn't require constant supervision from its controller.

As for Magneto's contribution...

Well, technically Magneto wasn't dead yet.

Still, the multifunctional electron microscope he'd helped create allowed Henry to regain nanometer-scale microscopic vision through technology.

And since his original heat vision had been useful for shaping metal, he replaced that capability with an ultra-high-temperature thermal welding gun combined with induction heating coils.

Neither tool was as convenient as genuine super-vision and heat vision.

But they were better than nothing.

For Henry's current needs, they were more than sufficient.

---

After completing Sparrow, Henry traveled to Hungary to meet Alexei Shostakov.

Little Duck One was running low on power and urgently needed a battery replacement.

Otherwise, according to its operating protocols, it would initiate self-destruction before the battery was completely depleted.

The explosion would be deliberately insufficient for full effectiveness, but it would still prevent anyone from draining the battery, forcibly shutting the unit down, and then dismantling it for study.

Henry brought Sparrow along on this trip because he wanted the opinion of an experienced field operative.

The Red Guardian, currently hiding in a secret safe house in Hungary, wasn't surprised by Henry's arrival.

They had already communicated beforehand.

Even though he was perfectly capable of doing so, Henry wasn't the sort to launch surprise visits without warning.

It was a matter of respect.

Since the battery replacement had been scheduled in advance, Alexei Shostakov had simply waited for Henry to arrive.

Even as a super soldier, he had no desire to test the blast radius and destructive power of Little Duck's self-destruct system.

Watching Henry skillfully replace the battery, Alexei said helplessly,

"Couldn't you just increase the battery capacity? Or give it its own generator or something? Then I wouldn't have to listen to self-destruct warnings every time the charge gets low."

Henry rolled his eyes.

"What, and carry around an auxiliary machine with the destructive potential of a nuclear weapon?"

"You don't seriously think putting a reactor inside it is a trivial matter, do you?"

Thinking of Captain America: Civil War, where Captain America disabled Iron Man's arc reactor with a single shield strike, Henry couldn't help but appreciate how thorough Tony Stark's safety measures were.

Otherwise, Tony, Steve, and Tony's best friend would all have been blown sky-high together.

If that had happened, Helmut Zemo would probably have laughed himself awake from sheer happiness.

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