Huff… huff… huff…
Steve suddenly woke from a dream, sweating and gasping for breath, a trace of murderous intent lingering in his eyes.
"Rare… a super-soldier having nightmares?" Natasha, sitting in the corner of the office and polishing her dagger, looked at Steve with curiosity. "You look like you dreamed about the old days."
"Mm…"
Steve pressed a hand to his forehead, calming his breath. His expression grew dim. "I… I dreamed about Bucky again."
"I've seen his file, you two were close." Natasha stopped mid-sentence as if she'd said too much, laughing softly and shaking her head. "I don't mean anything by it. I just hope you don't keep living in the past."
"I know what you mean."
Steve gave a bitter smile and sighed. "I just keep dreaming that when Bucky died, I was powerless… I could only watch."
"You can't blame yourself for that."
Natasha offered a word of comfort, then asked, "I heard Howard was involved. Can you tell me the details?"
"There's not much to tell… He didn't care about me or Bucky. We were just… pulled into an experiment by chance." Steve pushed himself up from the bedrail, not wanting to dwell on it, and asked, "Any word from Fury?"
"Not yet. We've tried every contact."
Natasha's expression darkened, her voice grew serious. "I haven't been able to reach Fury since this morning. I'm worried something might be wrong."
The raid last night at the bar to arrest Peggy had failed. As usual, Natasha reported back and asked Fury for instructions. But there had been no reply.
As an agent, Natasha's instincts told her this was abnormal. Given how closely Fury was following the situation, he wouldn't normally be silent after an operation went wrong, unless something had diverted him and he couldn't respond.
Natasha voiced her concern and asked Steve what he thought.
"Try contacting him again."
Steve frowned deeply, something felt off. "This mission… I've had a bad feeling about it."
Between the mission itself, Peggy's warnings, and Grant suddenly parachuting in from headquarters, the whole thing felt strange, like something was hiding behind the scenes.
Natasha nodded and reached for her comm device to call Fury, when the office door suddenly flew open.
Bang!
The entry was violent, more like a breach than a polite entrance. The sound made both Steve and Natasha frown in annoyance.
Seven or eight fully armed agents stormed in, tactical weapons leveled at them.
Caught off guard, Steve and Natasha were momentarily stunned, unsure what was happening.
The agents cleared a path, and a man in a suit walked in, Grant Ward.
"Grant, what are you doing?!" Steve forced his anger down and demanded.
"Nothing personal, just following orders."
Grant Ward wore a thin, hateful smile. "I hope you two will cooperate and make no resistance. Otherwise… you'll be charged with treason."
"Treason?!"
Steve and Natasha's faces changed. That accusation shut down any thought of breaking away.
"What's going on?"
Steve's eyes burned. He ground his teeth. "If there's no lawful cause, you have no right to detain us like this!"
"Grant, don't forget, we're both Level-8 agents." Natasha's gaze turned icy. "Even with World Security Council authorization, you can't overstep the Director and do this."
"The Director?" Grant's face twisted with derision, a half-smile on his lips. "That Director of yours is now, by World Security Council decree, charged with treason, theft of classified materials, illegal human experimentation, embezzlement of large funds, endangering national security, stripped of the Director's authority and placed on the highest red wanted list."
"No way!"
Natasha and Steve both exclaimed almost instinctively.
Nick Fury may be a sly old fox, but everything he'd done had been to protect humanity, how could the Council put him on a wanted list?
"It's true."
Grant tapped a few controls and produced a pale-blue projection. "This is the World Security Council's wanted document. Look it over. See if I'm lying."
'Nick Fury (Former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Currently in violation of multiple severe prohibitions, he is hereby formally stripped of all S.H.I.E.L.D. privileges and placed on the highest-level red notice. If located, he is to be killed on sight.
Alexander Pierce is appointed as the acting Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the interim.'
The wind had changed…
Steve and Natasha's faces went pale. They suddenly realized they had been tricked, this entire operation was nothing but a trap, deliberately meant to lure them away from Fury's side.
Fury, defect?
Utter nonsense. Even if Captain America himself defected, Natasha still wouldn't believe that the "black one-eyed bastard" would turn traitor!
So… all of this was a conspiracy!
"You two, please come with us."
Grant closed the projection file, waved at Agent Ye Gong beside him, then put on a standard fake smile, "As Fury's close associates, you are the prime suspects, so until the truth comes to light, you'll have to bear with us for a while."
...
...
...
Washington.
Time rewinds to a few hours earlier.
After a shouting match with the World Security Council, Nick Fury walked out of the top-floor office with a dark expression. Anyone could see that the Director was in no good mood.
And indeed, that was the case.
The Council's patience with him seemed to have reached its limit. They ordered Fury to surrender part of his authority and to disclose the whereabouts of certain funding.
They also demanded he reveal the location of his secret bases, make public the classified plans for the "Reishi" project, and disclose the progress of the accelerated Insight Program…
In short, the Council's main demands could be summed up as stripping his power and making all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets fully open, transparent, and subject to their control and manipulation.
Having long been familiar with the faces of such politicians, and knowing full well that some secrets absolutely could not be revealed, Fury would never agree.
Thus, the two sides erupted in a fierce quarrel. In the end, the Council tried to forcefully strip him of his authority.
Naturally, Fury refused to accept it, counterattacking verbally, refusing to hand over S.H.I.E.L.D.'s authority, and rejecting the accelerated Insight Program.
The meeting ended on a very sour note.
Fury faintly sensed that something was off, someone must be deliberately stirring up trouble behind the scenes. Otherwise, given the Council's usual preference for stability, they would never suddenly become this aggressive.
"Who could it be…"
Fury pondered possible suspects as he entered the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.
He still had other matters to deal with, and he also wanted to double-check whether the Insight Program had any vulnerabilities.
Leaving the Triskelion building, Fury got into his personal vehicle.
This car had been heavily modified for defense, top-tier bulletproofing, anti-collision reinforcement, even if someone mounted a Vulcan cannon against it, it could withstand a few minutes of direct fire.
As he drove down the road, Fury's mind replayed recent events, trying to work out who was behind this scheme.
The traffic light at the upcoming intersection changed.
Fury frowned, braked to a stop, and rested one hand against his face, continuing to think.
Suddenly, a black sedan shot out from the left intersection and slammed into the left side of Fury's vehicle with lightning speed.
Bang!
That car, clearly reinforced, delivered an impact so strong that Fury's vehicle tilted sharply. His head smashed against the steering wheel, and the force of the collision fractured his arm.
But it wasn't over yet!
Before Fury could recover, three heavy vehicles, coming from the right, the front, and the rear, rammed into him simultaneously, pinning his car in place.
After the repeated impacts, the vehicle itself remained intact, but Fury was badly shaken. His head had slammed into the steering wheel several times, and now his ears were ringing like a swarm of bees.
Not good…
Someone's trying to take me out!
Fury realized this, forcing himself to fight through the dizziness and lift his head, only to see that the heavy vehicle in front had a mounted M134 Vulcan cannon. The six barrels were spinning up with a mechanical hum, like the tolling of a death knell.
"Motherf**!!!"
Fury cursed, his heart sinking.
It seemed these people were going for the kill, they had no intention of letting him live!