"Nick Fury is dead."
As Steve hesitated, Natasha said this to Clark.
"Ah… that red-braised egg is gone."
Clark paused at her words, realizing she was probably referring to the plot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But something felt off. He had returned now, yet Fury seemed to have been attacked just like in the original story. That was a bit hard to believe.
Perhaps because in his previous life he hadn't been particularly fond of Captain America, Clark barely remembered the Captain America 2 plot. He only vaguely recalled that Nick Fury had been ambushed, and he had no memory of how he survived. Afterward, Steve destroyed HYDRA's three space carriers, and S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed.
But if Clark remembered correctly, HYDRA had launched those three air-conditioned carriers to dominate the world. Yet now, Clark himself controlled HYDRA, and they still entertained such ambitions. He simply could not comprehend what HYDRA was thinking.
Were they really trying to attack him with machine guns from high altitude like ordinary humans? If Tony weren't wearing his armor, that might have been dangerous. But even if a bullet hit him, it would be no more deadly than a raindrop falling from that height. Who has ever drowned from the rain? No one. So the weapons on the space carriers posed almost no threat to themselves.
This left HYDRA with only two plausible options:
First, they had found a way to deal with Clark—or thought they had. Clark considered the first unlikely, but the second not entirely impossible. Unless they discovered kryptonite, nothing on Earth could threaten him.
Speaking of kryptonite—haha—Clark doubted the Marvel universe could even produce a second Superman. After all, Superman belongs to DC. If he appeared in Marvel, it would be copyright infringement. So kryptonite simply doesn't exist there.
With the energy of three Infinity Stones, Clark felt he could demonstrate overwhelming power even against Thanos—assuming it was the version without all three Stones. Otherwise, he admitted he might not be able to stop Thanos' snap.
Realistically, the Stones had already fallen into Thanos' hands, and he still sought all six. That was a dream for now. Earth itself could barely resist Thanos' invasion, and nothing on the planet could directly oppose him. A simple truth.
Second, the whole thing might just be a forced plot device. HYDRA operatives were blindly following orders without considering feasibility. Clark considered this possibility unlikely but not impossible.
For Clark, remembering the exact storyline had become irrelevant. With his current power, events that once seemed life-threatening were now almost like a game. Plus, since he had intervened, many original plots had changed. So when he heard from Natasha that Nick Fury had "died," his first thought was: was Fury really dead—or just faking it?
Clark leaned toward the latter, recalling that in the films, Fury survived thanks to the Winter Soldier.
No matter how accurate Winter Soldier's aim or powerful his weapon, Fury would have had no chance of surviving otherwise. A sniper rifle could have left a hole in his chest the size of a bowl. Unless he had Deadpool-level healing, he would have died instantly.
So Clark wasn't sure Fury was truly dead.
"Before he died, Fury gave Steve a USB drive. We think it may contain clues about why he was attacked. But since Steve refused to hand it over, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is desperate to obtain it, we plan to take it to Skull Island. We're worried S.H.I.E.L.D. will track Steve down otherwise."
After all, every S.H.I.E.L.D. USB transmits information to them whenever it's accessed.
Natasha produced the USB Fury had given Steve. There weren't many people they could rely on right now, and Clark and Tony certainly counted among them.
"Luckily, Tony's here. I think it's best to give the USB to him."
Clark looked at the USB in Natasha's hand. He didn't know what encryption it contained, but with Tony around, he felt confident. Who else but Tony could hack S.H.I.E.L.D.'s firewall in front of Fury and even get promoted to senior agent? A USB like this should be easy to crack. Clark then led Steve and Natasha to where Tony was upgrading his armor.
When they found Tony, Clark saw him fully armored, cutting through a piece of metal. What happened next was astonishing. After Tony cut it, the metal slowly began to restore itself.
The repair was slow, but Clark could clearly see the metal healing. However, the flickering red light along the edge reminded him not of Tony's nanotech suit from Avengers: Infinity War, but of the Extremis virus from Iron Man 3, the villain Kilian's legacy.
"You injected the Extremis virus into that metal," Clark said.
Watching the metal edges glow and self-repair, Clark frowned. He knew well the destructive potential of the Extremis virus. While he didn't know how explosive a metal-based version could be, it was probably catastrophic.
Clark worried even more—had Tony considered injecting himself with Extremis because he felt weak?
"Don't worry," Tony said. "After my modifications, this version of Extremis won't explode. Plus, this isn't ordinary metal—it's nanotech. Injecting Extremis just made it… interesting."