Chapter 271: Tesseract (1)
New
13 hours ago
[LOCATION: The Golden City, Wakanda]
T'Challa stood by the balcony, overlooking the sprawl of Birnin Zana. The Maglev trains hummed silently along their tracks, weaving through the spires that blended ancient thatch designs with futuristic alloys. It was a picture of perfect peace.
He reached for his cup of tea.
His hand stopped in mid air.
It was a sudden dislocation of his senses.
The sound of the city… vanished. It was replaced by a sound that T'Challa had never heard, yet instinctively recognized as the death knell of a planet.
RIIIIIIIP.
It sounded like the sky itself was being torn in half.
T'Challa's vision went white, then inverted.
He was standing in the ruins of New York City.
The sky above Manhattan was a swirling vortex of purple and black, a hole punched through the fabric of the atmosphere. And pouring out of that hole, like a swarm of locusts from a biblical plague, were creatures.
Thousands of them. Riding flying chariots. Clinging to the sides of buildings.
And behind them, emerging slowly from the wormhole with the grace of a drowning leviathan, was a creature of armor and flesh, a flying whale the size of a skyscraper.
T'Challa looked up, paralyzed by the sheer scale of the invasion. He felt the heat of the plasma blasts. He smelled the ozone and the burning concrete.
"No," he whispered in the vision.
Then, the Leviathan opened its mouth and roared… a sound that vibrated in T'Challa's bones.
GASP.
T'Challa snapped back to reality.
He stumbled back from the balcony railing, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon. He knocked the tea cup off the table. It shattered on the floor, the ceramic shards skittering across the room.
Sweat poured down his face, soaking the collar of his tunic. His heart was hammering against his ribs.
"My King?" a Dora Milaje guard stepped out from the shadows, her spear raised, scanning for a threat. "Are you injured?"
T'Challa raised a hand, his breathing ragged. He stared at the blue sky above Wakanda. It looked fragile now. Like a thin sheet of glass waiting to be shattered.
"Get me the secure line," T'Challa ordered, his voice rasping. "Initiate Protocol: Sentinel. Emergency Session."
The guard hesitated for a fraction of a second, seeing the terror in her King's eyes, then nodded.
T'Challa wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. The image of the wormhole was burned into his retinas.
[LOCATION: The Sentinel Complex, New York City]
The emergency sirens in the Sentinel Complex were silent, a deliberate design choice by Tony Stark to avoid inducing panic in the support staff but the lighting in the hallways had shifted to a pulsing amber.
Inside the obsidian boardroom, the Illuminati Council assembled.
Tony Stark was already there, pacing the length of the room. He was wearing a grease stained tank top and jeans, having clearly come straight from the workshop. His Mark XII armor stood in the corner, its chest plate glowing softly.
The Leader, Chancellor Deven Ray, sat at the table, his face composed but his eyes scanning a datapad of global threat assessments. "Global sensors are green, Stark. Whatever he saw, it hasn't happened yet."
The doors hissed open.
Namor strode in, bringing the scent of brine and ozone with him. He carried his vibranium spear, his expression thunderous. "This better be significant. I was in the middle of a treaty negotiation with the Trench dwellers."
"T'Challa saw something," Tony said. "That's all we know."
Bucky Barnes and Pietro Maximoff entered next. Bucky looked alert, his viburnum arm glinting under the lights. Pietro looked bored, holding a half eaten energy bar.
"Where's the boss?" Pietro asked, hopping up to sit on the edge of the table.
"He's coming," Bucky said, taking a position by the door.
A moment later, the main doors slid open again.
Aryan Spencer walked in.
He was dressed in a sharp navy suit. On his left arm was Wanda, wearing a casual sweater and jeans. On his right was Sharon, in business attire. And trailing slightly behind them, looking around the room with analytical blue eyes, was Red.
Red was wearing a yellow sundress that looked suspiciously like something Wanda would wear and she was currently holding a tablet, rapidly scrolling through data.
"Average heart rate in this room is 110 beats per minute," Red announced, her voice crisp. "Namor is at 95. Stark is at 120. You are all biologically stressed."
"We're having an emergency meeting, Red," Tony snapped, though there was no heat in it. "Stress is the dress code."
"Where is T'Challa?" Aryan asked, moving to the head of the table.
As if on cue, the holographic emitter in the center of the table flared to life.
T'Challa appeared. He was leaning forward, his hands gripping the edges of his own console in Wakanda. He looked shaken.
"T'Challa," Aryan said, his voice calm, grounding the room. "Breathe. Tell us."
"I saw the sky tear open," T'Challa said, his voice echoing in the silent boardroom. "Above New York."
The room went deadly still.
"A portal?" Tony asked, his eyes narrowing.
"Maybe, or maybe a wormhole," T'Challa replied. "But it was massive."
He looked up, meeting Aryan's eyes through the hologram.
"An army of aliens, Aryan. They swarmed from the hole like insects. They had heavy armor. Flying leviathans that crushed buildings just by passing them. They were turning Manhattan into a slaughterhouse."
"When?" The Leader asked. "When does this happen?"
"It felt... imminent," T'Challa said. "Within days. Maybe hours."
"We need to know the source," Sharon said from the sidelines. "Wormholes don't just open. Someone has to open the door from this side. Or use a beacon."
"We can theorize all day," Tony said, stopping his pacing. He looked at Aryan. "Or we can stop guessing."
He pointed at the empty air in front of Aryan.
"Ask the Castle."
Aryan nodded. "Agreed. This isn't the time for detective work."
He looked at T'Challa. "Can you handle the connection?"
"I can," T'Challa replied.
"The question needs to be precise," The Leader warned.
"Who is opening the door?" Namor grunted.
"Who is responsible for the wormhole above New York City and what caused it to appear?" Aryan formulated. "Is that acceptable?"
The Council murmured assent.
"One billion Origin," Aryan stated. "Authorized?"
"Authorized," Tony said instantly. "Put it on my tab."
In Wakanda, T'Challa took a deep breath. He whispered the honorifics, his mind reaching out across the metaphysical distance to the Sefirah Castle.
"The Fool that doesn't belong to this era..."
The connection snapped into place. The fog swirled in T'Challa's mind. He presented the question and the payment.
Chapter 272: Tesseract (2)
New
13 hours ago
[CAUSED BY THE MANIPULATION OF THE TESSERACT, UTILIZING THE FACILITY COMMANDED BY NICHOLAS FURY, UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF LOKI OF ASGARD]
T'Challa's eyes snapped open.
"We have the answer," T'Challa said.
"Well?" Tony urged.
"Two names," T'Challa said grimly. "Nick Fury. And Loki, the God of Mischief."
"Fury," Sharon whispered, standing up.
"And Loki," Namor slammed his fist onto the table. "The Asgardian prince? The one who sent the Destroyer?"
"The same," T'Challa confirmed. "The answer stated: 'Caused by the manipulation of the Tesseract, utilizing the facility commanded by Nicholas Fury, under the influence of Loki of Asgard.'"
"The Tesseract," Sharon said, her mind racing through old SHIELD files. "It was lost when SHIELD fell. We assumed it was buried in the Triskelion debris or lost in transit."
"Fury took it," Bucky said, his voice low. "He hoarded it. Just like he hoarded Danvers."
"And now he's playing with it," Tony said, his face hardening. "He's going to invite a galactic invasion force to dinner."
"Or Loki is making him do it," Wanda suggested. "If Loki is involved... he could be controlling Fury from afar."
"It doesn't matter who is controlling who," Namor growled. "What matters is that another Asgardian brat is threatening my oceans with alien scum because his brother didn't beat him hard enough."
"We need the location," The Leader said. "If Fury has gone underground, he could be anywhere."
"If we search manually, we lose time," Aryan said. "And if T'Challa's vision is imminent, we don't have time."
"Pay the toll again," Tony said, waving his hand. "Another billion. Ask for the coordinates."
"Authorized," The Leader said.
Aryan looked at T'Challa. "Do it."
T'Challa closed his eyes again. He reached back into the fog.
Query: Current location of the Tesseract.
The answer flashed in his mind.
"A subterranean facility," T'Challa said. "Mojave Desert. Project PEGASUS. It's an old NASA site repurposed by SHIELD."
"I'll prep the Quinjets," Pietro said, blurring toward the door.
"No," Aryan said. "This needs to be surgical. If Fury is involved, the place will be trapped. If Loki is involved, it will be defended."
He looked at the Council.
"We send the ERO. Bucky, you lead the ground assault. Sharon, tactical oversight from the air. Tony, Namor, T'Challa... you are the heavy hitters. If Loki shows up, you put him down."
"And you?" Wanda asked, looking at Aryan.
"I handle the logistics," Aryan said. "If this goes wrong... I need to be here to coordinate the evacuation."
It was a lie, of course. Aryan knew exactly what was in that bunker. He knew because he had put it there. The "Tesseract" Fury was experimenting on was the fake he had created.
"I'll stay with him," Red said, stepping up to Aryan's side. "I can monitor the cyber warfare channels. If Fury tries to scrub his data, I'll catch it."
"Agreed," Tony said. The Mark XII armor encased him, the faceplate snapping shut. "Let's go take away Fury's toys before he breaks the planet."
[LOCATION: Project PEGASUS, Mojave Desert]
The facility was buried deep beneath the baking sands, invisible to the naked eye, but glowing like a flare on the sensors of the approaching Illuminati fleet.
Three stealth transport jets, bearing the emblem of the Earth Federation, screamed out of the clouds. They went from Mach 2 to a hover in seconds, the repulsive engines kicking up a sandstorm.
Inside the lead jet, Bucky Barnes stood by the ramp. He wore the tactical black armor of the ERO commander. Behind him stood twenty Super Soldiers.
"Drop," Sharon ordered from the command deck.
The ramps lowered.
The ERO jumped. Twenty super humans landed on the desert floor with a synchronized thud that shook the ground.
Bucky sprinted toward the ventilation stacks of the bunker. He punched the reinforced steel louvers, ripping the grate off its hinges.
[INSIDE THE BUNKER]
Dr. Erik Selvig (who had been recruited by Fury after the New Mexico incident) was staring at the Tesseract.
"The energy levels are spiking again," Selvig muttered, adjusting his glasses. "It's... it's singing. The harmonics are beautiful."
"Focus, Doctor," Nick Fury said from the catwalk above. "We need those weapons protocols."
"Sir," an agent called out from the security station. "Sensors are picking up... massive displacement on the surface. Multiple contacts."
"Who?" Fury demanded.
"Identified as... Federation."
Fury cursed. "How did they find us?"
Before he could give an order, the blast doors at the end of the lab exploded inward.
The heavy steel doors flew across the room, crumpling against the far wall.
Through the smoke, Bucky Barnes walked in.
"Director Fury," Bucky said, his voice amplified. "You're in violation of Federation law. Possession of unregistered Class A cosmic artifacts."
"Barnes," Fury said, his hand drifting to his sidearm.
"Stand down, Nick," Bucky said. "Don't make me hurt your people."
"Security!" Fury yelled.
A dozen SHIELD loyalists raised their weapons.
Behind him, the ERO soldiers moved faster than the human eye could track.
One ERO operator slapped a guard's rifle aside, swept his leg and administered a precise nerve pinch to the neck. The guard dropped instantly.
Another ERO leaped over a barricade, landing in the middle of three scientists. He deployed a Wakandan shock web grenade. A web of electricity expanded, stunning them all before they could hit the floor.
Bucky moved toward Fury.
Fury drew his gun and fired.
Bucky caught the bullet with his vibranium arm. Clang.
He vaulted onto the catwalk. Fury tried to throw a punch, but Bucky caught his fist, twisting his arm behind his back and pinning him against the railing.
"It's over, Nick," Bucky whispered.
Below, the lab was secure.
The scientists were zip tied and unconscious.
The guards were disarmed.
The ceiling of the bunker groaned.
CRASH.
A section of the roof melted away. Tony Stark floated down through the hole, his repulsors glowing. Namor dropped in beside him, landing heavily. T'Challa slid down a cable, landing silently next to the containment unit.
"Nice place," Tony said, looking around the cluttered lab. "Very retro. Love the asbestos chic."
He walked up to the containment field where the Tesseract pulsed with blue light.
"So this is the trouble maker," Tony said. "JARVIS, scan it."
"Scanning, Sir," JARVIS replied. "Energy signature confirms high level gamma radiation. It appears... volatile."
"It's active," Selvig shouted from the floor where he was restrained. "You can't just move it! If you break the field, it will discharge!"
"I invented the field technology you're using to hold it, Doctor," Tony deadpanned. "I think I can handle the extraction."
Tony raised his hand.
Technopathy.
He reached out to the console controlling the emitters.
The emitters whined down. The field dropped.
The Tesseract hovered there.
The back of his Mark XII armor opened up. A small drone detached… a containment unit with its own mini arc reactor. The drone flew over to the Cube.
Mechanical arms extended, grabbing the Tesseract.
The blue light flared, crackling against the drone's shielding.
The drone pulled the Cube into its chassis and locked it tight. The blue glow vanished, contained within lead and vibranium.
"Pack it up," Tony ordered. "We're done here."
Chapter 273: Tesseract (3)
New
2 hours ago
[LOCATION: Project PEGASUS - Exterior Perimeter, Mojave Desert]
The heat rising from the desert floor distorted the air, turning the horizon into a shimmering oil painting of beige and blue.
Bucky Barnes stood by the wreckage of the bunker's ventilation stack. The black tactical armor of the ERO Commander absorbed the sun, but thanks to the thermal regulation weave provided by Wakandan textiles, he remained cool. His vibranium arm glinted, a stark contrast to the matte black of his gear.
Around him, twenty Enhanced Response Operators stood motionless. They were the apex of human infantry… perfect physical specimens, disciplined by the kind of training that broke ordinary men.
"We have movement," Sharon Carter's voice crackled in Bucky's earpiece, crystal clear over the encrypted channel. She was hovering in the command stealth transport ten thousand feet above. "Sector 4. The ridge line."
"Thermal signatures match the rest of Fury's skeleton crew. They were running a perimeter sweep when you breached. Now they're trying to flank you for an extraction. " Sharon reported. "I see four targets. They're moving to the exfiltration point at the canyon south of your position. They have a hidden Quinjet."
"Copy," Bucky said.
He signaled to his squad with two fingers.
The ERO unit moved. The sand exploded beneath their boots as twenty super soldiers went from zero to sixty miles per hour in seconds.
[THE RIDGE LINE]
Clint Barton lay flat on his stomach, the heat of the rock seeping through his tactical vest. He peered through the scope of his compound bow, watching the black blurs tear across the desert floor below.
"Nat," Clint hissed into his comms. "They're coming. And they are fast."
Natasha Romanoff was crouching behind a boulder ten yards away, checking the charge on her widow's bite gauntlets. "How fast?"
"Captain America fast," Clint said, his voice tight. "Maybe faster. There's twenty one of them."
"We need to get to the jet," Maria Hill said, loading a magazine into her rifle with practiced calm.
"They'll cut us off before we reach the canyon," Coulson assessed, his eyes scanning the terrain. "Look at the dust trails. They're encircling us."
"Then we go through them," Natasha said.
She vaulted over the boulder, sliding down the scree slope, firing her grapples to swing across the gap. Clint followed, loosing three arrows in rapid succession.
The arrows were high tech, explosive tips designed to disable vehicles. They shrieked through the air toward the lead ERO soldiers.
The lead soldier reached up, his movement a blur and caught the first arrow mid flight. The explosive tip detonated in his hand.
BOOM.
Smoke cleared. The soldier was still standing. His gloved hand was blackened, but the underlying skin, toughened by the serum and protected by advanced polymer gloves… was intact. He tossed the ruined shaft aside and kept running.
"Well," Clint muttered, nocking an EMP arrow. "That's disheartening."
The ERO unit hit the ridge line.
Natasha engaged the first soldier. She used her momentum, a spinning scissor kick aimed at his neck… a move that would have decapitated a normal man.
The soldier absorbed the impact without flinching, grabbing her ankle in mid air. He slammed her into the dirt with enough force to crack the bedrock.
Natasha gasped, the air leaving her lungs. She rolled, activating her widow's bite. 50,000 volts of electricity surged into the soldier's chest.
He grunted, his muscles locking up for a second, but he didn't drop. He shook it off, reaching for her again.
"Stay down, Romanoff," the soldier said, his voice mechanically distorted.
Maria Hill and Coulson were pinned down by suppression fire… localized sonic pulses from ERO rifles that induced nausea and vertigo. They were incapacitated within seconds, clutching their heads, unable to stand.
Clint was the last one moving. He sprinted for the edge of the canyon, firing wildly behind him.
Bucky Barnes dropped from the sky.
He had leaped from a rock outcropping fifty feet above, landing directly in Clint's path. The impact created a crater, dust billowing around his legs.
Clint skidded to a halt, reaching for a scatter arrow.
Bucky closed the distance in a heartbeat. His vibranium hand clamped around Clint's bow, crushing the composite material like dry kindling.
Clint looked at the shattered bow, then up at Bucky's face.
Two ERO soldiers moved in from the flanks, securing Clint's arms.
The skirmish had lasted less than ninety seconds.
Natasha was pulled to her feet, her hands zip tied with high tensile polymer. Hill and Coulson were being helped up, groggy but conscious.
Bucky looked at them. "The transport is two mikes out. We're going to New York."
"To jail?" Coulson asked, wiping blood from his nose.
"To the Council," Bucky corrected.
[LOCATION: The Sentinel Complex, New York - The Obsidian Chamber]
The view from the top of the Sentinel Complex was usually breathtaking… a panorama of a city reborn under the Federation's guidance.
But today, the heavy blast shutters were lowered, plunging the vast boardroom into a twilight gloom illuminated only by the strip lighting embedded in the floor and ceiling.
At the head of the room, the Illuminati Council sat behind the crescent shaped obsidian table. They were elevated slightly, looking down at the center of the room.
Aryan Spencer sat in the center, his expression unreadable, flanked by Wanda. To his left sat Tony Stark, still wearing the under suit of his armor, picking at a spot of grease on his knuckle. To his right sat T'Challa and Namor, both projecting regal stillness. The Leader sat at the far end, his fingers steepled, his eyes cold.
In the center of the room, standing on the polished black floor, were the defendants.
Nick Fury.
Natasha Romanoff.
Clint Barton.
Maria Hill.
Phil Coulson.
Sharon Carter walked around the table to stand before them. She wore a Federation dress uniform. She looked at Fury, her former boss, with a mixture of pity and disappointment.
"We gave you a pass, Nick," Sharon began, her voice echoing in the silent room. "When SHIELD fell, when Hydra was exposed... the Federation issued a general amnesty. We offered every agent a choice: reintegration, retirement or service in the new order."
She walked down the line, meeting each of their eyes.
"We knew you had gone underground," Sharon continued. "And we let you go. The Council decided that as long as you were just, watching, you were harmless. A retirement home for cold warriors."
She stopped in front of Fury.
"But you couldn't just watch, could you?"
Fury stared back, his single eye defiant. "Someone has to watch the watchmen, Carter."
"We aren't just watchmen," Sharon snapped. "We are also the architects. And while we were building a roof over this planet, you were in the basement lighting fires."
She turned back to the Council, gesturing to the prisoners.
"The charge is Planetary Endangerment," Sharon stated formally. "Gross Negligence with a Class A Cosmic Artifact."
"We were just researching it," Fury interrupted, his voice gravelly and loud. "We were trying to harness it."
Chapter 274: Tesseract (4)
New
2 hours ago
"Harness it?" Aryan spoke. His voice was soft, but it silenced the room instantly. "You were poking a sleeping dragon with a stick, Nick."
Aryan leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
"Do you have any idea what the Tesseract is?" Aryan asked.
"It's an energy source," Fury said. "Unlimited power. A way to build weapons that could actually deter the kind of threats like you guys."
"It is the physical manifestation of Space," Aryan corrected. "And when you turned it on, when your scientists forced that energy spike... you sent up a flare."
"A flare?" Natasha asked. "To who?"
"To everyone," Aryan said. "To every warlord, conqueror and mad titan in this quadrant of the galaxy. You screamed into the void, 'Here we are! We have a cosmic artifact and we don't know how to use it! Come and take it!'"
Fury scoffed. "We needed a deterrent. You talk about peace, Spencer, but you and your friends sit up here with all the power. What happens when something comes that you can't talk to death? What happens when we need a gun?"
"WE are the gun!" Namor roared, slamming his fist onto the obsidian table. "We are the deterrent, surface dweller! We possess power you cannot even conceptualize and yet you tinker with forces that burn worlds!"
"Namor is right," T'Challa said, his voice icy. "We are not capable of keeping the Tesseract as a weapon, Nick. It is a beacon. And you lit it."
T'Challa stood up. He activated the holoprojector in the center of the room.
"You speak of readiness," T'Challa said. "You claim you were preparing for a war."
The hologram flickered to life. It was T'Challa's precognitive vision, rendered into visual data by Sefirah Castle's system after he utilized a portion of his stored Origin to clarify and project the fragmented event.
The room watched in horror.
The sky above New York is tearing open.
The Chitauri swarm.
The Leviathans are crushing skyscrapers.
The screams of civilians.
The city is burning.
"This is what you bought us," T'Challa said, pointing at the carnage on the hologram. "This is the immediate future. This is what my sight showed me the moment your scientists ramped up the Tesseract's voltage."
The color drained from Coulson's face. Hill looked away.
"A full scale extraterrestrial assault," T'Challa stated. "Led by Loki of Asgard. Drawn here by the energy signature you broadcast."
"Because of you," Aryan said, his voice dropping to a whisper that carried absolute condemnation. "Because you didn't trust us to protect the world, you have doomed it to a siege."
Fury stared at the hologram. He watched the Leviathan crash through Grand Central Station. He watched the Chitauri gun down civilians.
He tried to find an argument. He tried to find the strategic angle where this was justified.
"I..." Fury started, but the words died. He had no point. He had tried to build a shield and instead, he had opened the gate.
"We were trying to help," Coulson whispered, his voice breaking. "We thought... we thought we were the good guys."
"Intentions are irrelevant," The Leader said coldly. "Competence is what matters. And you are incompetents playing with godhood."
Tony Stark stood up. He walked down the steps from the dais, approaching the group.
"So here we are," Tony said. He looked at Clint, then Natasha. "We're preparing for the invasion you invited. But now we have to deal with you."
He stopped in front of Clint.
"You look tired, Legolas."
Clint looked up, his eyes weary. "Yes, I am tired, Stark. I'm tired of hiding in bunkers."
"Then stop," Tony said.
He turned to the group.
"The Council has discussed this."
Tony held up three fingers.
"Option One: You work for us. The Illuminati. Or the Earth Federation. You use your skills to actually help people. You get a paycheck. And you get a life."
He dropped a finger.
"Option Two: Retirement. Full retirement. We give you a new identity. You never touch a weapon again. You never speak to a spy again. And you go grow corn."
He dropped the second finger.
"Option Three: Jail. And not a nice jail. A dark hole where you can think about the end of the world for the rest of your life."
The silence stretched.
Clint Barton stepped forward. He looked at Fury, then at Natasha.
"I have a family," Clint said softly. "I haven't seen them in two years because I was 'protecting' them from a threat that... that apparently solved itself."
He looked at Tony.
"I take Option Two," Clint said. "I want to go home."
"Accepted," Aryan said from the dais. "Sharon will arrange the transport and the scrub of your records."
Clint nodded. He walked away from Fury, crossing the invisible line to stand by the wall. He didn't look back.
Natasha Romanoff watched him go. She looked at the hologram of the burning city.
"I don't know how to grow corn," Natasha said. Her voice was steady. "And I don't belong in a cage."
She looked at Tony.
"I'll work," she said. "For the Council. If there's an invasion coming... you need people who can fight on the ground."
"Agreed," Tony said. "Probationary status. You answer to Bucky."
Maria Hill stepped forward. "I'm with Natasha. I can't sit this out."
"Accepted," The Leader said. "You will report to Commander Carter at Federation Intelligence."
Phil Coulson looked at Fury. He looked at the man he had followed blindly for decades. The man whose secrets had secrets. And he realized now that the secrets were empty.
"I believed in SHIELD," Coulson said, his voice shaking. "I believed in you, Nick. I thought we were the wall."
He looked up at Aryan.
"But we weren't. We were just in the way."
Coulson straightened his tie. "I'll serve. The Federation."
"Welcome aboard, Phil," Aryan said kindly.
Fury stood alone.
He looked up at the Council.
"I don't retire," Fury said. "And I don't work for children."
Aryan stood up. He walked down the steps, stopping right in front of Fury.
"You still think you know better," Aryan said. "Even now. Even with the evidence of your failure staring you in the face."
"I know that power corrupts," Fury said. "And you guys have too much of it."
"Maybe," Aryan conceded. "But I didn't summon an armada to New York."
Aryan signaled to ERO.
"Take him," Aryan said.
"You're making a mistake," Fury warned as two ERO soldiers grabbed his arms. "You're going to need me."
"We really, really don't," Tony said, turning his back.
They dragged the former Director of SHIELD out of the room. He didn't struggle. He just stared at Aryan Spencer until the doors slid shut, his single eye burning with a warning that no one heeded.
The room was quiet again.