The night deepened.
Just then, a communication request connected directly to Lynn's office.
He answered the phone.
"Lynn."
On the other end of the line, Howard's voice was exceptionally exhausted, carrying an irrepressible gravity.
It was not the spirited, radiant genius inventor seen by the public, but a lone beast trapped in a cage, sensing danger.
"It's very late, Howard."
Lynn's voice remained calm.
"There's a problem, Lynn."
Howard's voice was very low, fearing he might be wiretapped.
"Inside S.H.I.E.L.D., there are more and more eyes watching me."
"Some people I once thought I could trust, their gazes have changed, revealing... fangs."
"Their surveillance of me has escalated to an unprecedented level."
Howard gave a bitter laugh.
"The irony is, it was precisely under this pressure that my research made a breakthrough."
"The Arc Reactor... I've solved the final puzzle of miniaturization. It will change the energy landscape of the entire World."
"But I know this will attract greedier, more unscrupulous hyenas."
On the other end of the line, the sound of Howard taking a breath came through.
His tone suddenly became incomparably grave, even carrying a sorrow akin to entrusting an orphan.
"Lynn, I have a premonition."
"A storm targeting me is coming."
"If... I mean if, something happens to me..."
"Remember your promise to me."
Howard's voice was trembling.
"Tony... he's still just a child... he's too much like me, arrogant, conceited, he needs someone to guide him..."
Lynn was silent for a moment.
He could imagine the helplessness and despair on the face of that once arrogant man on the other end of the line.
"Rest assured, Howard."
"The honor of the Stark family will not be severed."
"With your word, I can rest easy."
Howard's voice was filled with an exhausted sense of relief.
The call ended.
Lynn sat in his chair for a long time without moving.
His eyes were deeper than the night outside the window.
The storm is coming?
No, Howard.
The storm has already arrived.
You are just the first great tree about to be torn apart by the storm.
A long-buried name and a codename surfaced in Lynn's mind.
Howard's premonition was not wrong.
HYDRA's patience had run out.
To obtain Howard's technology, and to completely purge the last unstable "founder" within S.H.I.E.L.D., they were finally going to release that hound that had been frozen for decades.
That hyena named "Winter Soldier."
Lynn slowly raised his glass and downed the untouched whiskey in one gulp.
The liquid slid down his throat, but he felt nothing.
...
Long Island, suburban road.
The December blizzard was a white funeral left on earth by God.
A black Cadillac struggled through this endless expanse of pure white.
Frost crystals condensed on the car windows, isolating the bitter cold outside from the warmth inside.
Howard Stark gripped the steering wheel, his brows furrowed.
On the radio, the latest report about "The Deconstructionist" was cut intermittently by the interference of the wind and snow.
"...a broken soul... in the only way he knows how..."
"Nonsense."
Howard cursed under his breath and turned off the radio.
He hated this kind of mystical rhetoric, and detested even more the hypocrisy of packaging destruction as art.
His wife, MariaStark, sitting in the passenger seat, comforted him softly: "Don't think too much, Howard. We'll be home soon."
Howard forced a smile.
He didn't tell his wife that in the trunk lay his greatest breakthrough of his life—five vials of freshly made, perfectly formulated Super Soldier Serum.
He also didn't tell her why he had chosen such a remote road, blocked by heavy snow.
Just then, a blinding high beam lit up in the rearview mirror.
A heavy motorcycle rushed out of the wind and snow like a ghost.
It closed in on the rear of the car at a completely unreasonable speed.
A violent impact came from the rear, the Cadillac lost control, skidding wildly on the icy road, and slammed head-on into a thick oak tree by the side of the road.
The airbag deployed, and the World plunged into brief darkness before Howard's eyes.
When he regained consciousness, he only felt something warm and sticky on his forehead.
He struggled to turn around and saw Maria unconscious in her seat, blood also oozing from her temple.
"Maria..."
His call was interrupted by the sound of the car window shattering.
A hand, a hand with a metallic luster, directly smashed the driver's side window.
A man wearing goggles and a mask, revealing only a pair of emotionless eyes, appeared outside the car window.
The metal arm gripped Howard's throat, dragging him forcefully out of the deformed driver's seat and pinning him onto the hood.
Howard looked into those eyes, the eyes belonging to Bucky Barnes that he had once seen at a victory banquet.
But there was no longer any spark of the past left in them.
"You..."
Howard coughed up blood, his eyes filled with shock and sorrow.
"Sergeant Barnes..."
The Winter Soldier did not respond to his words; he was merely a mission executor.
As the pressure increased, the soft sound of bones fracturing was masked by the sound of the wind and snow.
Having dealt with Howard, the Winter Soldier walked to the passenger side.
He looked at the unconscious Maria without the slightest hesitation.
The metal arm raised, then fell heavily.
The entire World went completely silent.
Only the wind and snow remained, silently burying the crime.
The Winter Soldier opened the trunk, took the metal case containing the serum, got on his motorcycle, and disappeared into the vast snowy night as silently as he had come.
...
Texas.
In a dilapidated roadside tavern, the warm lights and noisy voices formed a different World from the wind and snow outside.
In the corner of the bar.
A man wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a long sword at his waist was drinking quietly.
His attire looked out of place with the locals wearing cowboy clothes around him.
On the tavern's television, news from New York was playing.
"...Following the Face of Wailing on the Brooklyn Bridge, the ghost artist has struck again, transforming the cross of a Gothic church into a posture of agony..."
"...Two street heroes attempted to stop him, but were crushed by a mysterious force and retreated in defeat..."
On the screen was the transformed church, and countless faces of panic, anger, and confusion.
The man tilted his head back and drank the last drop of wine in his cup.
The tavern owner was a middle-aged man with a beer belly; he was wiping a glass, curiously eyeing this silent guy.
"Hey, buddy. New York is really a mess right now. Tell me, what kind of monster could do such a thing?"
The man did not answer.
He fished a few coins from his chest and placed them gently on the bar.
Then, he stood up, adjusted his wide-brimmed hat, and turned toward the door.
When he pushed the door open, a low and hoarse voice drifted back with the wind.
"Noisy death is far less fatal than quiet death..."
The man's figure was soon swallowed by the wind and snow.
"...But, both are equally annoying."
The tavern owner was stunned for a moment.
He only saw the mysterious swordsman walking step by step into the depths of the wind and snow.
The direction he was heading was northeast.
The direction where New York was located.
...
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.
The atmosphere in Peggy Carter's office was oppressive.
"Sit, Barbara."
Barbara Minerva, codenamed "Cheetah," was still dressed in her capable scholar attire, with an appropriately concerned and confused look on her face.
She sat down opposite Peggy.
"You've seen it all."
Peggy didn't waste words and directly tapped the screen in front of her.
It was looping videos of the "creations" by The Deconstructionist and various analysis reports about his abilities.
But all conclusions pointed to "unknown."
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top physicists and material scientists cannot explain this phenomenon."
There was deep exhaustion and frustration in Peggy's voice.
She looked up, staring intently at Barbara.
"You are an expert in this field. Tell me, what do you see?"
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