"I bet you that that is a delicacy somewhere. Like a half-gram of polar bear liver. Like those fish that if you don't cut the right way will kill you, and which keeps poisoning people. I mean, far be it from me to judge thrill seekers, obviously, but if that's what you've got to do to get some excitement in your life, you're probably doing something really wrong."
Tony turned back to his computer for a moment, he pulled up another chart, another write up on Retroviral Hyperplasia, and glanced through the summary. He'd read them all. He'd consumed every scholarly article, every awareness charity piece, every first-hand account and study. He'd gone to bed with the disease just about every night for the past couple weeks. It was complicated, barely known and hardly studied because it was so rare. Most pharmaceutical companies didn't spend that much time on it for all the most infuriating reasons: it wasn't profitable. He understood it, of course, he knew enough about the business world to understand that everyone was out to make money, not save lives. A disease like this didn't ruin enough lives to turn a profit off the cure, so research went unfunded and unsupported. He would never have been interested in it himself, he knew that, if Harry Osborn hadn't come to him asking for help.
He'd been questioning his motives about everything these past few days. When was helping people more about money, more about PR or business strategy than about doing the right thing? Did doing something good for the wrong reasons still make it good work? Did throwing money and reputation at a problem because it was the problem of an attractive young CEO who so reminded him of himself mean that this was all...just some messed-up inflation of his own ego? Or was he really helping someone just because they asked? Would he do this for anyone else? Did it matter?
Was this really the time for this kind of crisis?
But he wasn't here to talk to Bruce about all of that, not really -- at least -- not directly. He was here for reassurance. For some kind of approval from the one person he really looked up to when it came to this kind of thing. If Bruce thought what he was doing was just, somehow, than it had to be. That was all there was to it.
"So I know, you've sort of -- you've gotten a renewed interest in genetics these last few years." Putting it lightly, maybe, but he knew there was no point hitting that nail too directly on the head. "And I wanted to get your -- just your opinion -- on something."