"Sir, do you have a specific interest in the work of Connors and Octavius?" Norman ventured, his mind making rapid connections. He recalled Aaron's earlier, almost off-hand listing of miraculous concoctions: dermal restructurers, telomere stabilizers, limb regeneration catalysts, oncological cytotoxins. Each represented a market worth hundreds of billions, a key to realms of influence Stark's flashy energy tech couldn't easily touch.
Energy was power. But the fear of death, the vanity of age, the desperation of illness—these were universal, primal drivers. One could choose to live without a arc reactor in their chest. No one could choose to forgo the hope of health or the dream of longevity. It was a deeper, more intimate form of leverage.
Aaron didn't deny the implication.
"Felicia," he said, his gaze still fixed on some internal horizon. "Coordinate with Norman's office. Schedule discreet, high-priority meetings with Professor Curt Connors and Dr. Otto Octavius. Inform them the new principal stakeholder and acting CEO of Osborn is keenly interested in the direction of their research and wishes to discuss… synergistic opportunities."
Felicia nodded, her fingers flying across the screen of a secured tablet.
"Understood, sir." She was the picture of efficient decorum, speaking when required, observing always. A glance at the scheduling software, however, revealed Aaron's calendar was a vast, empty plain. In stark contrast, Norman's schedule was a dense, color-coded nightmare of back-to-back meetings, calls, and site visits stretching into the wee hours for the next ten days.
The man had been demoted from sovereign to chief executive, worked longer hours for less ultimate gain, and yet moved with a zealous, almost feverish energy. Felicia filed the observation away. A man possessed, or a man who has seen a miracle and is desperate to earn another.
"As for the introductions," Norman added, "my executive assistant can provide Felicia with the relevant dossiers and established protocols. She'll facilitate the initial contacts."
Their procession continued, descending into the sterile, humming heart of the Osborn bio-engineering wing. In a secure, climate-controlled laboratory, a team of researchers in white coats stood at nervous attention beside a series of enclosed habitats.
"Sir, this specimen," began the lead researcher, a man with the eager eyes of someone who lived for grant approvals, "is a hybridized Atrax robustus funnel-web, its genome spliced with traits from Latrodectus and Salticidae families. Its silk exhibits a tensile strength-to-weight ratio exceeding any known natural or synthetic polymer by a factor of eight. The potential applications in ballistic textiles, aerospace cabling, biomedical sutures—"
Aaron tuned out the sales pitch. His focus was on the data summary glowing on a nearby monitor. The spiders weren't just strong; their nervous systems showed enhanced reactivity, their sensory hairs tuned to detect minute air pressure changes and vibrations with phenomenal acuity.
He already possessed a form of Precognitive Sensory Array from his earlier acquisitions, a generalized 'spider-sense'. But this was a dedicated, evolved biological system. The Primal Furnace had demonstrated that assimilating more refined or powerful versions of a concept could enhance existing traits. There was no hard ceiling, only the quality and nature of the material fed into it.
His gaze drifted from the spider enclosures to the sophisticated equipment surrounding them. The electron microscope, a hulking piece of machinery worth millions, hummed quietly. His mind, always calculating, branched out.
Microscopes. Telescopes. Spectrographs. MRI arrays. Tools that extended human perception into the infinitesimally small, the impossibly distant, the electromagnetically invisible. Then, further: Vibranium. Uru. Adamantium. Metals that defied conventional physics. The Arc Reactor. The Fusion Core. Power sources that tapped into fundamental forces.
A wave of vertiginous potential washed over him. He had been thinking in terms of discrete abilities—strength, durability, regeneration. But the Furnace operated on concepts. It could synthesize the principle of atomic-scale resolution from an electron microscope, or the concept of stellar observation from a telescope. It could assimilate the law-defying resilience of a mythical metal, or the contained sun of a fusion reactor.
If he amassed enough… if he curated carefully… the synthesis wouldn't just be additive. It would be multiplicative, exponential. He wouldn't be a man with a list of powers. He would be a convergence point for entire spectra of capability. Not omniscient or omnipotent—those were absolutes belonging to abstracts like the Living Tribunal or the One-Above-All—but something approaching a localized singularity of potential. A being whose very composition was an argument against limitation.
The realization was both thrilling and humbling. He had barely scratched the surface.
Noticing Aaron's prolonged silence, Norman sharply cut off the still-prattling researcher. A tense quiet fell over the lab, all eyes on the new, inscrutable authority.
Aaron surfaced from his reverie, his eyes sharpening as they swept the room. They held a new, acquisitive light.
"Felicia," he instructed, his voice calm but carrying absolute finality. "Work with Finance and Strategic Procurement. This department's operational budget is to be increased by forty percent, effective immediately. Our researchers require resources to accelerate their pioneering work."
The lead scientist's face split into a beatific grin. More funding! More staff! More glory!
"As for these specimens," Aaron continued, gesturing toward the spider enclosures.
The scientist nodded eagerly. "Of course, sir! We'll have them carefully transferred to the secure—"
"Take them all away," Aaron finished.
"…I'm sorry?"
"All of it. The specimens, the primary electron microscope, the secondary scanning units, the full spectrum analyzers, the environmental control modules for this lab. Everything. Pack it up."
The scientist's grin melted into slack-jawed confusion. The other researchers exchanged horrified glances. "Sir… with all due respect, without the core imaging and analysis suite, our work grinds to a complete halt. We… we can't just—"
Aaron turned to Norman, one eyebrow raised. "Do we possess only this single research facility?"
"Of course not, sir," Norman replied swiftly, though he too was bewildered. "We have the primary genetics lab on Sub-level Three, the advanced materials lab in the west tower, the—"
"Then relocate this team and their current project files to the secondary genetics lab immediately," Aaron stated, as if discussing the moving of office furniture. "All hardware and biological assets in this room are to be inventoried, secured, and transported to the executive freight elevator for direct collection. Is that understood?"
The researchers stood frozen, a tableau of professional devastation. Their beloved, cutting-edge tools, being hauled away on the whim of a new boss who clearly didn't understand how science worked.
Norman looked at the million-dollar microscope, the quarter-million-dollar analyzers. A phantom pain lanced through his accountant's soul. But he had felt the void of his genetic curse disappear at a touch. He had seen a man catch a bullet. The cost-benefit analysis, in the face of such power, was brutally simple.
He swallowed hard, his voice firming with resigned resolve. "You heard the Chairman. Initiate a full equipment and specimen transfer protocol. Code Black. All personnel, report to Lab Gamma-3 within the hour to resume work. Move!"
As the lab erupted into controlled chaos, Aaron watched, a planner surveying raw materials. The spiders were a step. The microscope was a possibility. Each was a piece of a much larger mosaic he was only beginning to design. The hunger of the Furnace was a quiet pulse in his palm, a sympathetic echo to his own expanding ambition.
The path forward was no longer just about survival or even dominance. It was about synthesis. About becoming something the world, in all its superheroic and cosmic strangeness, had not yet been forced to define.