Seeing the stunned expressions on everyone's faces, Ethan Blake felt deeply satisfied. This was exactly the reaction he had been aiming for. If today didn't scare them into thinking twice before interrogating him about the future again, nothing would. With that thought in mind, he waved a hand dismissively and leaned back as if the tension in the room had nothing to do with him.
"Alright, enough of that," he said casually. "Let's talk about the current situation. What exactly are we dealing with now?"
Phil Coulson straightened slightly before answering. His voice remained calm, but the weight behind the words was obvious to everyone in the room. "The disaster has been ongoing for seven hours now. The first targets were the President and the Secretary of State. After that came the Speaker of the House, the Senate leadership, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense… including your FBI Director. At this point, they're all dead."
Ethan rubbed his chin thoughtfully, almost as if considering an interesting business opportunity. "Oh, that's actually good news," he said with a grin. "Doesn't that mean I might get promoted?"
The room went silent.
Everyone stared at him as if he had just spoken a completely different language. At a time like this, when the global leadership structure was collapsing, he was thinking about career advancement.
Coulson cleared his throat and continued, choosing to ignore the remark. "Four hours ago, Europe and South America were also overrun. They suffered the same kind of attacks the United States did. At this point, only Eastern Europe has managed to resist the Iron Soldier invasion."
Ethan nodded to himself with faint amusement.
At that moment Tony Stark, who had been standing quietly to the side while listening to J.A.R.V.I.S.' ongoing analysis, finally spoke up. "According to J.A.R.V.I.S., those steel armors shouldn't have pilots inside them. If they're fully automated units, why not hack the invasion program and rewrite their command protocols?"
Before anyone else could answer, Nick Fury spoke.
His single eye moved from Tony to the others in the room before settling firmly on Stark. "To prevent outside interference, the Iron Soldier Project uses independent servers, dedicated signal stations, and private communication satellites. The entire system is physically isolated from external networks."
Tony blinked in surprise.
Then his expression darkened dramatically.
"Damn it!" he snapped. "That setup was specifically designed to keep me out, wasn't it?"
Fury didn't respond verbally. Instead, he simply stared at Tony.
Since Stark had become a consultant for S.H.I.E.L.D., the agency had recorded more than a dozen hacking attempts targeting their internal systems. Interestingly enough, none of those intrusions had ever occurred before Tony joined them. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots.
What made it even more suspicious was that the Iron Soldier Project involved arc reactors and armored combat suits—technology suspiciously close to Stark's own creations. Under normal circumstances, Tony shouldn't have even known the project existed.
Tony folded his arms and scowled. "Fine. Where's the server? I'll just destroy it."
Fury shook his head slightly. "To prevent exactly that scenario, the project protocol states that once the Iron Soldier Corps is deployed, the first commanding officer has the authority to relocate the server. Agent Garrett has already moved it to a classified location."
Tony laughed bitterly.
"You guys really thought of everything," he said sarcastically. "Except the part where the guy in charge turns out to be HYDRA."
His gaze swept across the room.
"And don't forget—Ethan warned you a long time ago that HYDRA was crawling all over S.H.I.E.L.D. Did everyone just conveniently forget that?"
Fury said nothing. There wasn't really anything he could say in response.
At that moment Natasha Romanoff stepped forward slightly, her voice calm but firm. "Tony, believe me, Nick is the last person here who wanted this to happen. But arguing about it right now won't fix anything. Once this crisis is over, you can fight all you want."
Tony sighed in frustration and ran a hand through his hair. "Do you realize what we're talking about here? That's thirty thousand armored units. Not three. Not thirty. Thirty thousand."
Technically speaking, Tony didn't think much of the Iron Soldier design. Compared to his own suits, the engineering was crude. Still, he had to admit the combat capability was roughly comparable to his old Mark III armor.
His Mark VII could absolutely dominate a Mark III suit in direct combat.
But even Tony Stark couldn't defeat thirty thousand of them.
Natasha didn't respond. Instead, she turned her gaze toward Ethan.
Everyone else slowly did the same.
Tony might not have a solution—but that didn't necessarily mean Ethan didn't.
Ethan blinked at the sudden attention. "Why are you all looking at me?" he asked lazily. "So what if a few politicians died? That's not exactly the end of the world. Calm down."
He pulled out a chair and sat down as if settling in for a casual afternoon conversation.
"Oh right, Coulson. I heard you collected a full set of Captain America trading cards. Mind showing them to me later?"
The room froze again.
More than eighty percent of the world's highest-ranking leaders had just been assassinated by autonomous war machines—and this guy was asking to see collectible cards.
Steve Rogers rubbed his forehead helplessly.
"Ethan… if you want one, I can give you a signed version later," he said patiently. "But right now we should probably focus on stopping HYDRA."
"Sure," Ethan replied with a shrug. "But honestly, this tiny situation has you all this nervous. What are you going to do when the real disasters show up?"
Those words sent a chill through the room.
Everyone knew Ethan could see fragments of the future.
If this was only a "tiny situation" in his eyes… then what kind of catastrophe counted as a big one?
Several people clearly wanted to ask.
But the moment the thought formed, they remembered something else. The current crisis had already been caused by knowledge of the future. If Ethan revealed another disaster and they accidentally made things even worse trying to stop it…
The consequences might be unimaginable.
So one by one, they suppressed the questions forming in their minds.
Ethan casually pulled out Captain Jack Sparrow's compass and spun it in his palm.
"Tony," he said, standing up. "Come with me. I'll locate the server. Once we find it, you can rewrite the command protocols."
Tony didn't hesitate.
"No problem."
For him, rewriting the program would be the easy part.
Steve stepped forward. "What can the rest of us do?"
Ethan thought for a moment before answering.
"You could chat," he said. "Play some cards. Maybe watch a movie. By the time we get back, everything should already be taken care of."
Several people exchanged looks of disbelief.
How could something this serious sound so trivial when it came out of his mouth?
Unless… to him, it really was trivial.
Steve cleared his throat. "We'll come with you. Even if we can't do much, we can still help."
Ethan shrugged. "Sure. I don't really care."
As long as no one tried to fight him for credit, it didn't matter who came along.
After Ethan agreed, Steve quickly began assigning roles. "Coulson, Hill—you two stay here and take care of Fury. Barton, Natasha, you're coming with me."
"Got it."
"No problem."
As Steve finished speaking, he noticed Wanda and Pietro standing beside Ethan, clearly eager to join.
He frowned slightly.
"Ethan… you're not planning to bring these two kids along, are you?"
Wanda immediately crossed her arms.
"We're not kids," she said indignantly.
"And we're very capable," Pietro added.
Before Steve could respond, a gust of wind suddenly swept through the room. In the blink of an eye, the shield vanished from Steve's hand.
A moment later, it appeared in Pietro's grip several meters away.
At the same time, Wanda casually lifted several nearby objects into the air with a flick of her fingers, suspending them in midair as if gravity had simply stopped working.
Steve blinked.
Then he sighed.
"Alright," he said slowly. "I take back what I said. Pietro… could I have my shield back now?"
Pietro grinned and tossed it back.
Some time later.
Colorado.
Tony hovered in the air in his Mark VII armor while scanning the barren terrain below.
"Ethan," he said over the comms, "are you sure the server is down here?"
"Absolutely," Ethan replied confidently.
The moment he finished speaking, the Mark VII began unleashing a barrage of covering fire toward the ground below.
Explosions ripped through the rocky surface, tearing apart layers of earth and debris.
A few minutes later, the entrance to a hidden HYDRA base was finally exposed.
A massive stainless-steel door blocked the passage, easily absorbing Tony's first round of missile strikes.
Tony hovered closer.
"Seriously?"
Then the Mark VII's chest reactor flared to life.
A concentrated laser beam shot forward, burning a glowing hole straight through the reinforced steel door.
....
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