When Clark and Diana finished dealing with the Skull Island situation and returned, dusk had just fallen.
"What do you want to eat tonight? I heard there's a really good restaurant here in Hawaii. Want to give it a try?"
Since they were still traveling, Clark didn't go straight home. Instead, he took Diana back to the vacation villa he had rented in Hawaii. As for Godzilla, Clark didn't take it back to Heartlake; instead, he settled it in the waters surrounding Skull Island.
After all, compared to Heartlake, Skull Island was larger and more comfortable. And now that Clark could open a portal to the island at any time, it didn't really matter where Godzilla stayed.
"Let's give it a try then." Diana didn't really care what they ate—she wasn't exactly a foodie, so it made no difference to her.
"Alright, I'll check the navigation and see where that restaurant is." Clark pulled out his phone and opened the map app.
But just as he took out his phone, it suddenly rang. Clark glanced at the screen—it was Nick Fury. He figured Fury must be calling about the Skull Island incident.
After all, with the island closing earlier than expected, most people would probably guess that Clark had something to do with it. So, Fury's call didn't come as a surprise.
What did surprise him was that Fury's reason for calling had absolutely nothing to do with Skull Island.
"Clark, the Mind Scepter has been stolen."
"When did this happen?"
Hearing Fury's words, Clark froze for a second. The topic was completely different from what he had expected—he thought Fury was calling to ask about the early closure of Skull Island.
As for the stolen Mind Scepter—Clark had already anticipated that. Although he didn't know exactly when it disappeared in the original timeline, he knew it would disappear eventually.
After all, if Hydra never got their hands on the Mind Scepter, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver would never have come into existence, right?
What Clark didn't know was that, in the original story, Hydra had taken the Mind Scepter after the Battle of New York. However, because of their fear of him, they hadn't dared make any moves at the time.
So, the scepter had remained quietly stored in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret facilities—until today, when Hydra finally stole it.
"Today, because of the Skull Island situation, we had to reassign a lot of our people. I didn't expect that to be the moment someone would steal the Mind Scepter."
"Do you have any leads?"
"I can't say for sure, but I'm certain the people who took it were Hydra operatives."
"Of course," Clark thought to himself.
"You need to be careful. We believe Hydra stole the Mind Scepter because of you."
"Because of me?!" Clark was stunned. That was not what he expected. In his mind, Hydra would have wanted the Scepter to develop superpowered soldiers—what did he have to do with it?
"Actually," Fury continued, "one of our researchers recently managed to use the Scepter's power to control a lab mouse. And that experiment happened just yesterday."
"So we're guessing that there's a Hydra mole inside that lab. And they stole the Mind Scepter to control certain individuals." Fury didn't finish his sentence, but Clark understood exactly what he meant.
"You mean I'm one of those people?" Clark asked directly.
"Yes. We believe you're one of Hydra's main targets. If they could control you, it would be their greatest triumph."
Clark chuckled. "Let them try. If they really think they can use the Mind Scepter to control me, they're in for a nasty surprise."
After all, the Scepter's power to control others came from the Mind Stone inside it. Unfortunately for Hydra, Clark himself also wielded the power of the Mind Stone. The idea that he could be controlled by it was absurd.
In fact, after stealing the Mind Scepter, Hydra had split into two factions. One faction, led by Wolfgang von Strucker, focused on weaponization—they wanted to use the Scepter to build more powerful weapons, especially with Project Insight nearing completion.
The other faction, led by Daniel Whitehall, was far more radical. They believed that even if Project Insight succeeded, Hydra could never rule the world as long as the Avengers—especially Clark—existed. So, they preferred using the Scepter to directly control world leaders and members of the Avengers.
Clark didn't know about Hydra's internal conflict, but he understood one thing: if Hydra really started using the Scepter to control world leaders, it would be a huge problem.
However, his knowledge of the Scepter's current location was limited. He vaguely remembered that, in the movies, it had first been stored in a Hydra base somewhere in the Arctic, and later moved to Sokovia—where the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron began.
But the Arctic was vast. Even for Clark, finding Hydra's hidden base there wouldn't be easy. And given how different this world had become from the original timeline, he wasn't even sure if the Scepter was still there.
"You'd better stay alert," Fury warned.
Clark said nothing, which made Fury assume he was worried. He had no idea that Clark didn't fear the Scepter at all. To Fury, Hydra using the Scepter to try controlling Clark was a terrifying possibility—hence this urgent call.
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