"This is!!!"
Sitting on the aircraft, Tohka soared through the night clouds. Then, she was stunned by the scene in front of her.
Although she had seen it in movies before, witnessing it in person was a completely different experience.
Under the bright moonlight, a massive aircraft carrier floated like a beast atop the clouds. Just looking at it gave off an overwhelming sense of pressure.
"This is our aircraft carrier—how's that for spectacular?"
Seeing the astonished expression on Tohka's face, the agent piloting the plane looked proud. After all, it wasn't often one got to see the young lady of the Stark family showing genuine surprise.
"Mm, it's alright I guess. But don't worry, this thing won't last more than a few hits from me. So, rest assured, if this thing ever gets taken over by someone else, I'll be the first to bring it down."
Tohka may have been impressed, but her train of thought seemed slightly off.
"..."
Alright, after hearing Tohka's words, the agents all decided to just shut up. Truly worthy of being Tony Stark's protégé—her first reaction was to figure out how to dismantle the aircraft carrier. That guy's first instinct was to study it after tearing it apart.
At this point, they couldn't help but question whether it was a mistake for Nick Fury to bring these two aboard. Now they could only hope they were just talking big and wouldn't actually go through with it.
"You're here!?" As soon as she entered the aircraft carrier, Tohka saw Nick Fury. But just like over the phone, the guy didn't look happy.
"Mm, this thing's not bad, but it still has quite a few flaws, huh?" At that moment, a lazy voice rang out. Tohka immediately understood why Fury looked the way he did—Tony was here, fiddling with something on his screen. Right then, Agent Hill hurriedly ran up to Fury and reported with urgency.
"This is bad, someone has hacked into our internal network. Someone is currently browsing our files and even viewing the carrier's structural blueprints, and our team can't stop them."
"...."
Upon hearing this, Fury didn't look the least bit surprised. His already dark face grew darker. He didn't need to think to know who was responsible.
"Mm? What are you doing here?"
At this point, Tohka's voice came from beside Tony as she looked over at what he was doing.
"Aren't those the blueprints for the carrier? What's there to see?"
"...."
Okay, this was awkward. Tohka didn't even realize what she'd just said.
She couldn't read the schematics anyway, only recognized them from Tony's screen. But the moment those words left her mouth, not just Fury—all the personnel onboard turned their eyes toward Tony.
"Ahahaha, I was just curious! I'm just helping you guys see where things can be improved, after all, this is your ace, right?"
Being stared down by so many people, even Tony felt the pressure.
Everyone here was a trained agent, most of whom had seen combat. To mask the awkwardness, Tony scratched his head and gave a forced laugh. But even then, his other hand kept working swiftly on the screen.
Truth be told, this carrier was built by the world government, and even with his tech there were still weaknesses. This was a good chance to take notes.
As for dignity—he'd long since thrown that to the dogs.
"You done gawking yet? Don't forget why you're here. If you're going to look, at least help upgrade it. Seriously, you two are such headaches."
Rubbing his temples in frustration, Fury didn't stop him. After all, Tony's father had been involved in founding S.H.I.E.L.D. too—strictly speaking, Tony had the right to see all this. Still, Fury expected him to offer something useful in return.
"Alright, fine. Here, here, and here can all be optimized. If you're willing to spend the money, I'll make this carrier better than ever."
Hearing Fury's complaint, Tony didn't refuse. After all, this carrier was used to fight crime. He tapped a few places on the screen quickly, then forwarded several upgrade proposals to Fury, clearly leaving the decision up to him.
"Hill, take these to the engineering team for discussion."
Glancing at the data Tony had sent, Fury casually handed the computer over to Hill. He wasn't a scientist and didn't understand everything, but that was fine—S.H.I.E.L.D. had its own tech consultants.
After handing it off, Fury turned back to Tohka and Tony.
"Alright, enough small talk. I've got urgent business, so let's start the experiment today. Follow me."
Honestly, he didn't need to be there himself. He could've just left it to Coulson and Hill. But unfortunately, with Tony—the troublemaker—involved this time, Fury didn't trust anyone else to keep things under control. Who knew what kind of chaos Tony and Tohka might cook up together?
Fury led Tohka and Tony deep into the aircraft carrier.they walked, fewer and fewer people followed—the clearance level required was clearly rising.
Soon, only a handful remained as they reached their destination, where a glowing blue cube awaited them.
"This is the Tesseract, huh? I've seen it in the old man's notes. Too bad he only had partial data salvaged from Hydra, but even that yielded quite a bit."
As soon as they entered, Tony rushed up to the containment unit and eagerly grabbed the cube to study it. He ignored Fury's expression completely—this thing could bring him endless insights.
"Alright, alright, let's collect data first."
Seeing Tony about to dive into research mode, Fury had no time to waste entertaining him. That earlier security breach had already thrown everything into chaos. So, he turned to Tohka.
"You see that over there? That's the machine Tony provided. Our people have already assembled it. In a bit, I'll need you to inject energy into it. Hmph, I want to see exactly what this cube is capable of—to warrant Hydra going to such lengths to retrieve it back then."