With great power, comes great responsibility.

I'm pretty sure Mary Jane doesn't understand why I'm doing this. That fact's been plaguing me every moment I've stolen away to do additional research into Stark's condition, that my wife, the woman I've vowed to dedicate the rest of my life to, doesn't approve of my actions. She doesn't press, though -- doesn't beg me to stop or reconsider what I've been up to in the month since my release from the clinic, but I can sense that she's not happy. I can't even blame her. Were our positions reversed, I doubt I'd be quite so composed. Still, there's this saying about how what's right isn't always popular and what's popular isn't always right. I'm pretty sure I read that off some banner pinned to the cracked walls of Midtown High, granted, but it's sound advice all the same. Maybe it's not popular to help the man who almost killed me, but I have to believe it's right to help the man who saved my life months before.

That all said, I haven't had the easiest time of it. Most of the work I did into looking at Wolverine's adamantium poisoning was destroyed in the hurricane, which was really the best lead I had. Running on what I managed to salvage, I got the idea to try looking for published -- not to mention, heavily redacted -- S.H.I.E.L.D. documents, Logan's pills having originated from my very favorite government acronym up in the sky. It wasn't until late last night that I stumbled upon anything worthwhile, something completely unrelated about Atlantis sparking an idea in my head that seemed too simple to possibly be effective. Hours later, though, when my hands are covered in ink from writing pages and pages of equations and my eyes have crossed from reading my own cramped writing for so long, I'm struck with the notion that maybe it's not so crazy a solution after all, that maybe, just maybe, this'll actually work.

Not wanting to worry her more than necessary, I wait until MJ's awake before leaving in a hurry, still in the clothes I wore yesterday, with my papers shoved hastily into my trusty messenger bag. By the time I make it up to Stark's house, I find myself wishing I'd had the foresight to grab breakfast -- or at least a change in shirt -- but in the end, I don't really care. Panting out a hello, how do you do to the A.I. Jarvis when I push through the front door, I press a hand to my aching chest as he lets me through the secure entrance, swallowing hard as I half-stumble down the stairs two at a time.

"Lithium dioxide," I blurt out once I enter the workshop, not bothering to announce my presence more politely, throwing my bag onto the nearest clear surface so I can catch my breath. "And maybe a phone network so next time I don't have to run, but mostly lithium dioxide."

The sun's already set by the time I roll up to the footpath that leads up to the house, and while my arms are aching from wheeling myself around all day long, it's a good sort of pain -- familiar, almost, in a way that reminds me of home, like I've been out web-slinging for hours on end instead of trekking across some tropical island. But for all that I should be exhausted, I'm anything but, my mind still buzzing with ideas from my talk with Tony. For the first time in a long time, I'm preoccupied for all the right reasons -- excited, even, that I'll be able to make a difference in a way that has nothing to do with hitting some schmuck in the face. With as useless as I've been feeling as of late, this project is exactly the sort of thing that'd put a spring in anybody's step -- or, ya know, some sort of wheel-appropriate metaphor.

Anyway, not the point.

Nodding my respects to what I can make out of Uncle Ben's grave in the moonlight, I head towards the door. It's always a little bit of a hassle to open the darn thing from the chair, but I've developed a technique over the past couple of weeks that works well enough, even if it involves a lot of leaning forward and quick reflexes to make sure it doesn't close before I have a chance to get through. Securing the lock behind me, however useless it probably is, I call out, "Mary Jane, you in?"