"Fck, fck, f*ck!!!"
Sitwell nearly got scared to death by Rumlow.
He scrambled up from his seat, stumbling backward while hurling curses at Rumlow.
"Damn it, why the f*ck would you do that? That was Pierce!"
"Yeah, he was Pierce." Rumlow spoke calmly. "And he was the only Hydra head in this operation who failed."
As he spoke, Rumlow turned around openly and faced his chest toward the gun barrels aimed at him by Pierce's loyal inner circle.
He talked without panic, steady and clear.
"Our exposure was sudden, but look at the world. Europe, Africa, wherever you want to name, Hydra achieved overwhelming victory over S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Only us. Only the Americas branch got kicked out by those leftover S.H.I.E.L.D. forces. Isn't that Pierce's failure?"
"That's because of Captain America!" Sitwell argued unwillingly. "If other branches had to face Captain America too, they'd lose even worse than we did!"
"Then what?" Rumlow snapped back.
"Why didn't we kill Captain America the moment he woke up? We knew he was Hydra's historical ender, and yet Pierce trusted his own schemes so much that he let Cap become the new Hydra's ender."
"Is that the fate Pierce wanted?"
"Bullsh*t!" Sitwell roared, eyes bulging behind his glasses as he bared his teeth at Rumlow.
"No matter how you explain it, you can't change the truth. Without Pierce, other branches won't accept us!"
"Pierce lost. We lost. But he was still the boss who stood alongside the other heads!"
"Heh." Rumlow laughed with contempt. "Is a dead boss still a boss?"
He pulled out his pistol.
"Hey, put the gun down!"
"Don't move, man!"
As the others grew tense, Sitwell stiffened up and shouted at Rumlow, putting on a brave front.
"What else are you going to do, kill me? Then you can replace Pierce and be wmmph…?!"
Rumlow shoved the gun barrel straight into Sitwell's mouth.
This time, the little bald Sitwell panicked for real.
That cold, metallic, bitter taste of the Magnum made his tongue feel like it had nowhere to go.
And Rumlow's finger, twitching on the trigger…
"Mmmph mmmph mmmph!!!"
Sitwell clamped his legs together. Honestly, at this point he'd give up his dignity, anything, as long as he could live.
Meanwhile, Rumlow continued.
"The old Hydra rose because it had the great Red Skull."
"But after our leader vanished in battle with Captain America, even though we still prospered, we lost the glory we once had!"
As he said that, Rumlow pulled the muzzle out of Sitwell's mouth and casually smashed Sitwell's head twice with the pistol grip.
"But whether it was Red Skull or Pierce, they both proved one thing through their failures."
"Brains alone are not enough to carry us to the end. What we truly need is a leader who's strong enough!"
The moment he finished, Sitwell, trembling, immediately changed his approach.
This time he carefully played along, lowering his voice as he asked, "So we should trust elites like you, the action-team types. Only someone who can handle any enemy has the decisiveness and composure to handle any accident, right?"
"Right my ass…" Rumlow shook his head, helpless. Sitwell was way too f*cking stubborn.
Pierce really was trash. How could he ever have put someone like this in a high position?
Rumlow glanced around at the other elites and spoke in a mysterious tone.
"I'm not capable of being our leader. But I do know the perfect candidate."
"Believe me. If he becomes our boss, then we are destined to never fail again!"
As he spoke, he pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed right in front of everyone.
Ring ring ring…
It rang for a long time.
This…
This made Rumlow painfully awkward.
Everyone else felt awkward too. This wasn't how the story was supposed to go.
Wasn't the call supposed to connect, and then the person on the other end would show them what a real big shot was?
Then they'd pledge loyalty as a group and rise again?
Why didn't the call go through?
"Uh… Boss is probably resting. Even our failure is just a small matter in Boss's eyes!" Rumlow forced a line out to save face, then called again.
This time, Heisenberg finally picked up.
"Rumlow, give me a reason you're interrupting my sleep!"
Heisenberg sounded genuinely annoyed. He really had been sleeping.
Hearing that tone, Rumlow didn't panic at all. Their brief contact was enough for him to get a feel for Heisenberg's temperament.
He knew Heisenberg wouldn't blame him over something this minor.
So Rumlow reported softly.
"Boss, I'm on a plane above the outskirts of New York right now. Alexander Pierce has been taken care of."
"There are also more than twenty Hydra elites here. They need your guidance."
"Oh?" Heisenberg sounded pleased, rolling over on his lounge chair.
"You've got hackers, right? Find the video of my fight with Hulk last night."
"What happens next is on you."
Heisenberg hung up.
On the plane, Rumlow smiled.
He slid the phone back into his tactical vest and said to everyone, "We've got plenty of people who count as excellent hackers."
"Find the fight video from last night. The answer I'm going to give you is in there."
The moment he said it, the hackers started working.
In no time, they found all kinds of YouTube videos, but they were messy fragments, mostly shaky clips filmed by civilians and uploaded, with wildly different quality.
So the hackers dug deeper, searched satellite footage, then processed and edited everything together.
Finally, they reconstructed the full battle between Heisenberg and the Hulk, the one that had stunned the entire world.
In the video, amid the screaming and shouting of civilians on-site, Heisenberg's power-filled fists shook every agent watching.
When Heisenberg's second punch sent the Hulk flying out of New York, the agents on the plane actually started cheering.
But when the Hulk broke through the sky, passed not far from a satellite's own body, slammed into the Moon, then got smashed back toward Earth…
The entire plane went silent.
At the end of the video, when the Hulk reverted back into Banner, and Heisenberg raised his middle finger toward the satellite…
"This is our Boss now, everyone!" Rumlow said, his whole body vibrating with excitement.
"He is a true god walking among humans. No words can describe his greatness."
"He will lead Hydra to rise again with a brand-new posture!"
Rumlow was so excited his face turned red.
No one cared about his lack of decorum, because most of them were tempted.
As for the scattered few who weren't tempted…
They looked even more excited than the ones who were.
If you're acting, I can't pretend I don't see it.
Rumlow continued in that atmosphere.
"Heisenberg. Maybe you'll say he's an alien, but he has the same traits we do, the same appearance we do."
"Besides the power that makes us look up in awe, he's one of us."
"Of course, he is destined to stand above us. High above, like a god."
"Is there anyone more suitable than a powerhouse like that to lead Hydra forward?"
Rumlow patted Sitwell's bald head.
"Hulk couldn't even take three punches and one kick from Boss. Do you think that Captain America you've always feared can cause trouble for our new boss?"
Alright, Heisenberg was already being called their new boss.
And everyone present actually accepted that statement.
Looking at his former colleagues, silent but wearing vivid expressions, Rumlow knew his short-term mission was partly accomplished.
He raised the intercom and gave a quiet order.
"We're not going anywhere. Not Europe, not Asia. We're going back to New York."
"We restart from the place where it all ended."
"Yes, sir!"
The pilot obeyed excitedly. The plane turned back toward New York and finally landed at a harbor airstrip that used to belong to Kingpin.
Rumlow, bringing a group of outstanding senior agents, quickly blended into the nuke gang's atmosphere.
…
After Rumlow woke him up, Heisenberg covered his head and took another nap.
When he woke, it was already 11:20 a.m.
He climbed off the lounge chair and first glanced at Banner, still unconscious.
Tsk tsk… no sleeping posture at all.
Heisenberg frowned in disgust, grabbed a hanging tapestry, and tossed it over Banner's naked body.
Last night really was stupid. What was he thinking, letting a naked man lie on his rooftop?
If his subordinates saw this, wouldn't they misunderstand his orientation?
Heisenberg muttered to himself, then quickly went to the wardrobe, grabbed a set of clothes, and threw it beside Banner.
That way, when Banner woke up, he'd see clothes right away, and nobody would misunderstand.
With that little Banner problem handled, Heisenberg went downstairs to the nightclub, sat on his personal sofa, and ate the lunch the chef brought.
While eating, he checked his gains.
And one look made his eyes almost pop out of his skull.
"Yesterday the host obtained 625,477.262 cubic units of Origin Matter. Keep it up!"
"Holy sh*t!!!"
Heisenberg cursed out loud.
What the hell did he even do yesterday to cause that much impact?
Six hundred twenty-five thousand cubic units of Origin Matter meant he had at least slightly changed the fates of six hundred million people.
That wasn't six ten-thousands as a joke. That was six hundred million.
But thinking again…
Purple Man exposed Hydra, triggering the full-scale war between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra nearly two years early.
That alone changed the original fates of tens of thousands of agents.
Those agents had families and friends. The ripple web wasn't just a few million.
At the same time, aside from the U.S. and China, Hydra won in most countries.
That one victory alone could change the fate of the majority of those nations' citizens.
And even if S.H.I.E.L.D. in the U.S. won, it was a miserable victory.
Even the President died. You could imagine what the country looked like now.
The chaos would probably last a long time.
As for China…
Sorry. That's a forbidden zone. No comment, no comment.
In short…
Heisenberg smiled. Really smiled.
Earth in the Marvel universe had a total population of around ten billion.
This one wave let him squeeze out roughly one-fifteenth of the Origin Matter!
Purple Man was truly overflowing with merit!
/-\
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