Chapter 17: Extreme Tug-of-War, Dismissing the Black Widow and Calming the Witch
Natasha lay on the floor covered in wood chips and broken glass, her throat burning painfully, every breath feeling like swallowing blades.
Her gaze crossed the messy floor, locking onto Lynn's left hand, which hung by his outer thigh.
Two taps of the index finger, one tap of the middle finger, thumb tucked in.
This sequence of movements was extremely fast, almost imperceptible under the cover of night and magical red light.
But as a top Agent who had walked out of the Red Room, she would never misread it.
This was the highest-level tactical silent command within S.H.I.E.L.D.
Lynn turned around, his broad back completely blocking the moonlight leaking in from the window, and also thoroughly blocking the surging crimson energy behind him.
He looked down at Natasha, his eyes, which usually carried a hint of a low-level Agent's timidity, now filled only with bottomless indifference and scrutiny.
"Not leaving yet?"
Three extremely light words, devoid of emotional fluctuation, yet carrying an irresistible coercion.
Natasha forced herself to stand up, the smell of burnt flesh on her thigh from the magic rushing into her nostrils.
She didn't say another word, supported herself with one hand on the twisted metal window frame, and like a wounded leopard, leaped into the boundless night without hesitation.
She knew very well that she survived not because S.H.I.E.L.D.'s reputation was so tough, but because the man in front of her had held back the dog chain that could have strangled her at the last moment.
Inside the bedroom behind him, the smell of violent ozone had not yet dissipated.
"Lynn!" Wanda's sharp voice came from behind, carrying a trace of unwillingness and annoyance, "Why did you let her go? She saw you, her eyes are dirty!"
Scarlet energy tentacles emerged from the void again, hissing in the air like several venomous vipers, ready to Pierce through the wall to chase the Black Widow who had fled into the night.
Lynn didn't look back at the window, but turned directly, facing those manic magical particles without hesitation.
The energy tentacles stopped abruptly the moment they touched Lynn's suit, freezing right in front of his nose, the red light flickering violently, signifying the host's extremely unstable emotions.
"Wanda." Lynn sighed, the coldness he had just shown to Natasha fading from his tone, replaced by an almost helpless gentleness, "You almost tore my house down."
"She was the one who broke in first!" Wanda's deep green eyes welled with water; the world-destroying demon who had just regarded human life as nothing instantly turned into a girl who had her territory violated and was deeply wronged.
She took a step forward barefoot, completely ignoring the sharp debris all over the floor, wanting to throw herself into Lynn's arms.
"Don't move." Lynn suddenly gave a low drink.
Wanda froze in place, her red lips trembling slightly, dangerous red light starting to surge in her eyes again, thinking Lynn was being fierce to her for the sake of that red-haired woman.
But the next second, Lynn stepped forward, bent down, put his hands through her knees and back, and picked her up horizontally.
"The floor is full of glass shards, what if you cut your feet?" Lynn held her, steadily avoiding the mess on the floor, walked to the sofa that had not yet been affected by the magic, and put her down gently.
Wanda stared blankly at Lynn, the violence, grievance, and jealousy from just a moment ago instantly shattered by this sudden tenderness.
Her hands tightly gripped the collar of Lynn's shirt, her fingertips turning an unnatural reddish hue from the force.
"I don't care about them!" Wanda raised her head abruptly, her voice carrying a heavy nasal tone and pathological stubbornness, "I only care about you! No one can look at you, no one can touch you! You are mine!"
Her yandere possessiveness was revealed completely at this moment.
Lynn knew very well that when dealing with Wanda in this state, any attempt at reasoning was just adding fuel to the fire.
She didn't need logic, but absolute favoritism and obedience.
"I am yours." Lynn didn't hesitate in the slightest, looking straight into her eyes, his tone as firm as if reciting some sacred contract, "From the ruins of Sokovia, my life has been yours. No one can take it away, not even the God of Death."
This sentence precisely poked at the deepest weakness in Wanda's heart.
The tragic scene of being pierced by thousands of bullets in the simulation flashed through her mind again; that was a nightmare she could never escape in her eternal life.
Wanda's tears burst forth. The red light in her eyes dissipated completely, replaced by extreme dependence and lingering fear.
She straightened up abruptly, kissing Lynn's lips with near madness, carrying a trace of bloodiness and undeniable dominance, as if wanting to knead Lynn into her own flesh and blood.
Lynn closed his eyes, responding to this kiss that carried the aura of destruction.
His hands tightly embraced Wanda, soothing her trembling back, but his mind was calm without a single ripple.
Extreme balancing act, perfect crowd control.
He used his body to block Natasha, not only protecting S.H.I.E.L.D.'s trump card but also sending a clear piece of intelligence to Fury: I can control this monster, but don't come testing my bottom line again.
At the same time, he used an unreserved promise to completely lock Wanda's emotional defenses.
In this crisis-ridden Marvel Universe, only by keeping this Skyfather-level monster firmly by his side could he have the qualifications to overturn those high-and-mighty chessboards.
...
On the outskirts of New York, on an abandoned road five kilometers away.
Natasha stumbled out of the woods, leaning heavily against the hood of a black SUV.
The night wind was cold, but she was soaked in cold sweat from head to toe.
Her throat was burning, and every swallow of saliva carried a strong bloody taste.
The burns on the outside of her thigh were still oozing tissue fluid, the pain hitting her nerves in waves.
She tremblingly unzipped her windbreaker and pulled out the high-frequency communicator she wore close to her body.
"Calling headquarters... This is Romanoff." Her voice was hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against a rough wall.
A brief burst of electrical noise came from the communicator, followed immediately by Nick Fury's deep voice: "Report the situation, Natasha. You sound like you just crawled out of a meat grinder."
"Worse than that, Officer." Natasha closed her eyes, Wanda's scarlet eyes, condensed purely from killing intent, and Lynn's extremely cold eyes appearing in her mind again, "Mission failed. The target is extremely dangerous, the assessment level needs to be raised to... immeasurable."
Fury was silent on the other end of the communication for two seconds: "Did the Witch lose control?"
"No. It's Lynn." Natasha opened her eyes abruptly, her tone carrying a tremor she hadn't even noticed herself, "Officer, we were all deceived by that low-level Agent. He is not some unlucky guy held hostage by the Witch; he is the one holding the dog chain."
"Explain clearly." Fury's voice turned cold instantly.
"When the Witch wanted to kill me, he only used one sentence, one action, to make that energy capable of tearing apart a helicarrier instantly dissipate." Natashatook a deep breath, enduring the severe pain in her throat, "What's even more terrifying is that while he was calming the Witch, he turned his back to her and gave me a tactical hand signal."
Triskelion underground Base.
Fury's only remaining eye narrowed sharply, his body leaning forward involuntarily, his leather coat rubbing against the leather seat and making a dull sound: "What hand signal?"
"Two taps of the index finger, one tap of the middle finger, thumb tucked in." Natasha repeated, "It should mean: Target controlled, stand by."
The communication channel fell into a ten-second deathly silence.
Only the faint rustling of current could be heard.
"Officer?" Natasha frowned.
"Are you sure it's this action?" Fury's voice became extremely dry, revealing an unconcealable gravity.
"I have received the most rigorous code training, there is no way I could have misread it." Natasha answered decisively.
Fury didn't reply immediately. He turned to the main control computer behind his desk, inserted his highest-level access key, and pulled up a black file that had been sealed for ten years.
A series of complex tactical hand signal diagrams popped up on the screen.
Two taps of the index finger, one tap of the middle finger, thumb tucked in.
Fury stared fixedly at the screen, his pupil contracting violently, his breathing appearing to stall at this moment.
"Natasha, retreat to headquarters immediately. Cut off all direct contact with Lynn." Fury gritted his teeth and gave the order, his speech rate twice as fast as usual.
"Officer, is there a problem with that hand signal?" Natasha keenly sensed Fury's abnormality.
"The meaning of that hand signal is indeed 'Target controlled, stand by'." Fury took a deep breath, his voice pressed extremely low, as if afraid of some ghost hiding in the dark, "But that is a one-way command code exclusive to the former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. during the Cold War. It was completely destroyed ten years ago, even Pierce has no right to view it!"
Fury's fingers hovered above the keyboard, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.
"A Level 3 Agent who has been on the job for less than three years..." Fury stared at the flashing cursor on the screen, feeling a chill down his back, "Not only does he know this dead code, but he is also using this dead code to, in turn, command me!"
Chapter 18: The Clues to the Insight Project, Lynn's Secret Investigation
The bedroom was filled with a faint scent of ozone, and the weak moonlight slanted through the broken window frame onto the floor.
Wanda was sleeping soundly. Her cheek was pressed tightly against Lynn's chest, her warm breath rhythmically brushing against his collarbone. Even in her sleep, her hands were still clutching tightly onto the fabric of Lynn's shirt, the force so great that the fabric was crumpled into a ball, revealing a possessiveness that was paranoid to the bone.
Lynn leaned against the headboard, his gaze clear, without a hint of sleepiness.
He waited patiently for forty minutes. It wasn't until his Spider-Sense confirmed that there were no lurking Agents or listening devices within a five-kilometer radius that he reached out, and with extreme slowness, pried Wanda's fingers open one by one.
During this process, he even held his breath. Any slight, heavy airflow could wake this yandere Witch who could tear the Earth in half at any moment.
Carefully tucking a pillow that carried his body heat into Wanda's arms, and watching her unconsciously tighten her arms around the pillow, Lynn then silently rolled out of bed.
He walked barefoot across the mess on the floor and went to the metal workbench in the corner of the living room.
He pulled open the bottom drawer and took out a specially modified tactical terminal.
He turned it on. The eerie blue screen light illuminated Lynn's expressionless face.
He fished out the pure black Level 7 clearance card that Alexander Pierce had given him from his pocket, held it between two fingers, and precisely pushed it into the card reader slot on the side of the terminal.
"Beep." A barely audible electronic sound rang out. The massive S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle emblem popped up on the screen, followed immediately by a dual verification box for retina and fingerprint.
Lynn's fingers hovered above the keyboard, then tapped rapidly as if playing the piano. He didn't follow the standard verification process, but instead pulled up the underlying command prompt and typed in a long string of extremely complex garbled code.
Alexander Pierce thought a Level 7 clearance card was a sweet deal that could firmly tie Lynn to HYDRA's chariot, allowing them to use the Witch.
But he had no idea that Lynn was not just a transmigrator familiar with the plot, but also a monster with a system-enhanced physique and brain processing power comparable to a supercomputer.
The Spider-Sense brought not only the premonition of deadly danger but also terrifying micro-insight. In the deep underground hangar of the Triskelion, every muscle twitch frequency, eyeball rotation angle, and even the slight pauses when Alexander Pierce operated the main console were all precisely captured and reverse-engineered by Lynn's brain.
"Click." Lynn pressed the Enter key heavily.
The eagle emblem on the screen distorted violently, its wings falling off, transforming into a gruesome skull made of green characters.
HYDRA's dark web opened its doors completely to him.
Lynn didn't hesitate, typing four words directly into the search bar: [Insight Project].
Data poured down like a bursting flood.
The internal structural diagrams of the three new-generation helicarriers, orbital parameters of synchronous satellites, charging efficiency of heavy beam weapons...
Lynn scanned these top-secret files, which were enough to trigger a World war, at a glance. His heartbeat didn't fluctuate at all, and his gaze finally locked onto a hidden subfolder named "Zola Algorithm."
It took him exactly three minutes to crack this folder.
The moment the progress bar reached the end, the screen flashed, and dense, red names flooded the entire screen like a waterfall.
This was HYDRA's ultimate trump card. By analyzing everyone's bank records, medical history, voting preferences, and even call logs, it calculated in advance the targets that might hinder HYDRA's rule in the future. Then, the three airborne helicarriers would lock onto these targets from space and launch millions of precision-guided weapons within a minute to carry out a complete physical eradication.
Lynn scrolled the mouse wheel.
Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange...
Those superheroes from the original plot were all lying on this death list, not a single one missing.
Lynn's mouth curled into a cold sneer. Alexander Pierce, that old dog, really had a big appetite, foolishly attempting to use a few broken ships to go against the fate of the entire Marvel Universe.
He tapped the keyboard and entered his own name in the search box: Lynn.
He needed to confirm where exactly he had been placed on Alexander Pierce's chessboard. How much murderous intent was hidden behind the superficial wooing and allocation of resources.
"Ding." Search complete.
The millions of names on the screen instantly cleared, leaving only a single red file.
Lynn's gaze fell on the ID photo in the upper right corner of the file, and his fingers tapping on the keyboard suddenly froze.
In the threat level column next to the photo, it wasn't the standard numerical classification, but a string of shocking scarlet characters: [Threat Level: Omega (Uncontrollable Variable)]
And in the [Handling Plan] column at the very bottom, it was clearly stamped with Alexander Pierce's electronic signature and highest authorization code. The content consisted of only four short words: —[Eliminate Immediately].
The eerie blue screen light shone on Lynn's face, and as he looked at these four words, a mocking arc appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Alexander Pierce, that old fox, gave him Level 7 clearance on the surface, but had long since sharpened his butcher's knife in secret. Did he really think of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a tool he could manipulate at will? Wanting to eliminate me, this disobedient "rogue ninja"? In this Universe where gods fly everywhere and a purple potato-man can snap his fingers at any moment, thinking a few broken ships could dominate fate was simply ridiculous.
Lynn's fingers turned into afterimages on the keyboard. He pulled up the core database of the "Zola Algorithm," the terrifying computing power bestowed by the system making his brain run at speeds comparable to a supercomputer, and those complex encryption protocols were non-existent in his eyes.
Rows of progress bars popped up on the screen. "Charging progress: 78%. Estimated to reach launch threshold in thirty-six hours."
Lynn narrowed his eyes slightly. In the original plot, the activation of the Insight Project was definitely not this fast. It seemed that the scarlet storm Wanda Maximoff stirred up over the Triskelion had completely shattered Alexander Pierce's sense of security, forcing these rats in the gutter to flip the table early.
"Want to play big? I'll play with you."
Lynn typed in a piece of extremely hidden backdoor code. This was like a perfect "Substitution Jutsu"; once Alexander Pierce wanted to fire, Lynn could replace the real fire control commands with this redundant data at any time, causing those main guns aimed at the ground to explode the moment they fired.
When he pulled out the pure black Level 7 clearance card, Lynn's Spider-Sense suddenly felt an extremely subtle prick. It felt as if his nape was being pressed tightly against the tip of an extremely fine needle.
Lynn lowered his head, his sharp gaze sweeping over the edge of the card. He closed his eyes, his Chaos Magic Affinity allowing his perception of the surrounding environment to reach a microscopic level. In the inner interlayer of the card, he captured a trace of an extremely weak electromagnetic frequency fluctuation.
"Military-grade micro-locator and pulse bug." Lynnsneered.
He didn't crush it. In an intelligence war, destroying the enemy's surveillance devices is a bad move; using the enemy's eyes to pass on false intelligence is the top-tier game.
Triskelion, deep underground hangar.
Blinding searchlights shone on the massive hull of the helicarrier, reflecting a cold metallic luster.
Alexander Pierce stood on the high platform, overlooking this killing machine that was about to change the World. In his chessboard, he considered himself the absolute chess player, treating everyone as pawns that could be discarded at any time, but he simply didn't understand what was the "jade" that truly needed to be revered and protected.
"Officer," Crossbones Rumlow walked quickly onto the high platform, his left arm still wrapped in thick bandages, the price left behind from being grazed by the aftermath of Wanda Maximoff's magic. "Word from the armory is that three hundred kilograms of high-purity Vibranium have been loaded. Coupled with the high-end tactical equipment previously approved for him, this amount of resources is enough to arm an entire special forces brigade!"
Rumlow gritted his teeth, his eyes full of malice: "Are we just going to let a low-level Agent blackmail us like this?"
Alexander Pierce turned around, his wrinkled face showing no emotional fluctuation, only the coldness unique to a politician: "Rumlow, have you been scared witless by that Witch? You only see the Vibranium, but you don't see the value behind him."
"But he is completely uncontrollable!"
"No one can truly control a monster at the god level." Alexander Pierce walked to the console and pulled up a holographic projection. "But as long as the monster has attachments, that rope of attachment is our remote control."
On the projection was none other than Lynn's face, which carried a hint of fatigue. And below his photo were the four scarlet characters: "Eliminate Immediately."
"The Zola Algorithm has already marked him as an Omega-level variable. In that clearance card, there is a tracker I personally implanted." Alexander Pierce's voice echoed in the empty hangar, revealing a hair-raising chill. "Thirty-six hours from now, the Insight Project launches. When the helicarrier takes off, the coordinates for the first main cannon shot will be his safe house."
Rumlow was stunned for a moment: "You intend to take out the Witch as well?"
"If it cannot be used by me, then it must be completely destroyed." Alexander Pierce glanced at him coldly. "Notify Barnes and have him enter Level 1 combat readiness. Lock onto that Agent's location 24/7. Once the Witch leaves his side by more than one hundred meters, or the helicarrierfinishes charging, execute the beheading immediately."
"Understood. Hail HYDRA." Rumlow stood at attention, a cruel sense of satisfaction flashing in his eyes.
Outside New York, safe house. Lynn tossed the clearance card onto the coffee table in the living room, ensuring the bug could clearly capture the ambient sounds in the room.
He turned and walked into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and cold water splashed noisily into the sink.
Looking at the intact face in the mirror, Lynn knew that to completely control a yandere, sweet talk alone was not enough. You must make her feel pain, feel that what she cherishes is being cruelly destroyed by the outside World. This bitter meat scheme was a "feint" that struck directly at the yandere's soul.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and actively removed the suppression barrier against Chaos Magicwithin his body.
"Hiss—" The violent energy that had lost its restraint instantly rampaged through his meridians. Lynn groaned, the veins on his forehead bulging, and cold sweat the size of beans slid down his cheeks. This feeling was like having countless extremely tiny blades cutting crazily inside his blood vessels.
He endured the severe pain, deliberately guiding this backlash energy to surge toward the surface of his skin. At the same time, he bit his tongue hard, letting a faint smell of blood fill his mouth.
Soon, on his neck, collarbone, and chest, shocking bruises and purple-red bloodstains appeared. These marks looked as if he had suffered some kind of high-voltage electric shock, or perhaps cruel torture endured to forcibly suppress some terrifying power.
Being ruthless to oneself is the only way to survive in the Shura field.
After dealing with this group of HYDRA, perhaps he should take Wanda Maximoff to live a few days of peaceful daily life. He heard that a restaurant called "Ichiraku Ramen" had opened in Hell's Kitchen, or maybe go eat some barbecue; anything was better than staying in this snake's nest full of scheming.
Lynn panted heavily, his hands pressed against the bathroom counter, his hair ruffled into a mess. He looked at the man in the mirror—eyes weary, covered in wounds, exuding a fragility that seemed ready to shatter at any moment—and hooked the corner of his lips in satisfaction.
Best Actor-level acting, ready.
He dragged his heavy footsteps out of the bathroom, intentionally making his footsteps sound weak and unsteady.
Just as he reached the bedside, the air still retained the manic scent of ozone. Wanda Maximoff, who had been sleeping soundly while clutching the pillow, felt her eyelashes tremble violently.
Those deep green eyes opened instantly in the dim room. Almost in the same second, violent scarlet energy, like an enraged tsunami, instantly swept through the entire bedroom.
"Lynn!"
There was a hint of panic in Wanda Maximoff's voice from just waking up. But when her gaze, aided by the moonlight, locked tightly onto Lynn's pale face and the shocking bruises on his neck, that panic instantly transformed into a violence capable of freezing the soul.
"Who did this?"
Wanda Maximoff sprang up from the bed, not even wearing shoes. Scarlet energy tentacles instantly wrapped around Lynn's waist, pulling him violently into her embrace.
Her trembling fingers caressed the wounds on Lynn's neck; the moment her fingertips touched them, Lynn very cooperatively sucked in a breath of cold air, his body shrinking slightly.
This tiny, small action completely snapped the last string of Wanda Maximoff's sanity.
The red light in her eyes was so dense it was almost dripping blood, and the surrounding air emitted ear-piercing explosions due to the extreme magical fluctuations. The wooden headboard began to crack inch by inch under the invisible pressure, turning into powder.
"Tell me, who hurt you?!"
Her voice was sharp and distorted, carrying an Earth-shattering pressure. "Was it that red-haired woman just now? Or that one-eyed black guy? I will crush their bones inch by inch!"
Lynn leaned against her shoulder, coughed weakly twice, swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva, and said in a low voice, in an extremely hoarse tone filled with helplessness and forbearance: "It's okay, Wanda... the 'bond' between us is not something they can sever. This is just... the price that must be paid to protect you, so they don't take you away as a monster."
These words were like a spark, precisely landing in a powder keg filled with explosives.
The scarlet in Wanda Maximoff's eyes instantly exploded.
"BOOM!" The night sky outside the window tore open a huge scarlet crack without warning. The violent Chaos Magic shot straight into the sky, and the entire power system of New York City experienced a terrifying three-second blackout at this moment.
"They dare to touch you..." Wanda Maximoff held Lynntightly, her voice as light as a whisper, yet revealing a chilling madness. "Then I will make the whole World pay for you."
Just then, inside the clearance card that Lynn had tossed on the living room table, the micro-bug faithfully transmitted the sound of the magical explosion, which was enough to shatter eardrums, and Wanda Maximoff's declaration of World destruction, word for word, back to the Triskelion.
Far away in the underground hangar, Alexander Piercelooked at the energy monitor on the screen that instantly went off the charts, his face turning as pale as paper. He stared fixedly at the mass of scarlet data representing the Witch's power, cold sweat soaking his back. He had no idea what kind of World-destroying nightmare he had just awakened.
Chapter 19: Variables on the List, HYDRA's Guarded Heart
"Zzz—crack!"
A harsh, screeching sound exploded in the underground abyss hangar of the Triskelion. Pierce ripped off his tactical headset and slammed it onto the console. His eardrums were buzzing, and a trace of warm blood even seeped from deep within his cochlea.
On the holographic screen, the energy monitor representing the coordinates of the safe house on the outskirts of New York saw its needle instantly shatter the maximum threshold. That scarlet data stream, like a beast breaking free from its shackles, scorched the main console's graphics card, emitting a burnt smell.
The backup lights in the entire hangar flickered wildly.
Crossbones Rumlow gasped, subconsciously reaching for the sidearm at his waist: "Officer, this energy fluctuation... Did she discover the bug?"
"No, she didn't." Pierce stared fixedly at the charred screen, his chest heaving violently, cold sweat sliding down his wrinkled cheeks into his collar. "She is warning this World. That Agent... Lynn, is her only fatal weakness."
Fear, an extremely rare, completely uncontrollable fear, finally gripped the heart of this HYDRA leader. He had originally thought Lynn was just a leash holding the monster, but now he realized that the other end of the chain was tied to a living volcano capable of tearing Earthapart.
"Raise his threat level again! Immediately!" Pierce spun around, his voice sharp due to extreme tension. "Access the 'Zola Algorithm' core library! Lock Lynn's elimination priority directly to the top target!"
"But Officer, the Insight Project still needs thirty-six hours to..."
"Have the engineering department push the reactor power to the limit! Twenty-eight hours! I can only wait twenty-eight hours at most!" Pierce slammed a fist onto the metal tabletop, the knuckles making a dull thud. "Once the helicarrier takes off, the first main cannon shot must completely wipe that block off the map! Burn that Agentand that Witch to ashes together!"
He paused, a hint of ruthlessness flashing in his eyes: "Get Bucky Barnes in position. Lock onto the safe house around the clock. As soon as the Witch leaves his side for even half a step, execute a physical decapitation immediately. I will not allow such a variable to live until tomorrow!"
...
New York outskirts, safe house.
A manic energy storm raged in the small bedroom. Glass shards hovered in mid-air, trembling violently, and large swaths of latex paint peeled off the walls.
Wanda's eyes were scarlet as she gripped Lynn's waist tightly. Her body trembled uncontrollably from extreme anger, and hot tears fell onto Lynn's collarbone, mixing with the purple-red bruises he had forced out himself.
"They are forcing you!" Wanda's voice was distorted, filled with sobbing and Earth-shattering violence. "They treat you as a 'vessel' to control me! I want to kill them! I want to tear that one-eyed black guy and everyone wearing black clothes into pieces!"
Lynn endured the pain of having his ribs crushed, placing his warm palm on her trembling back, soothing her as he stroked her long hair.
"I'm fine, Wanda. Just a little backlash." He deliberately made his voice sound hoarse and weak, each breath carrying a painful tremor.
However, a cold mockery flashed in the depths of his eyes.
That old dog Pierce couldn't even use the bug on the table properly; instead, it had become the best loudspeaker for him to provoke the yandere.
Lynn's peripheral vision moved past Wanda's shoulder, glancing at the tactical terminal in the corner.
In the bottom right corner of the screen, a hidden green code box was flickering wildly. It was the backdoor program he had just implanted into the "Zola Algorithm," which was currently synchronizing the underlying instructions from HYDRA headquarters in real-time.
Red data waterfalls refreshed rapidly. Lynn's name had clearly changed from ordinary red to blood-dripping dark red.
[Target: Lynn. Elimination Priority: 01. Countdown: 28:00:00.]
Furthermore, the nerve in Lynn's mind called "Spider-Sense" suddenly twitched violently.
A cold, mechanical, emotionless malice was spreading from an abandoned water tower 1,500 meters away. Although extremely faint, under Lynn's radar-like microscopic perception, it was as conspicuous as a searchlight in the dark night.
A sniper. And a top-tier killer with heavy armor-piercing rounds.
The Winter Soldier was in position.
A faint, imperceptible sneer curled the corner of Lynn's mouth.
These self-righteous politicians really thought a few broken guns and a few broken ships could eliminate a variable? On the surface, they gave him Level 7 clearance and a large amount of Vibranium, but in secret, they pointed the muzzle directly at his forehead.
Unfortunately, in the face of absolute information asymmetry, Pierce's foolproof killing scheme looked like a leaky sieve in Lynn's eyes. He not only saw HYDRA's trump card but could even see their posture as they prepared to play their hand clearly.
"Wanda, look at me."
Lynn held the Witch's face, his thumb wiping away the tear stains at the corner of her eyes. He didn't wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, letting that glaring red stimulate Wanda's nerves.
"No one can take me away. But we can't make a move yet." Lynn lowered his voice, his tone filled with restrained tragedy. "Inside S.H.I.E.L.D., there is an undercurrent so massive it's hard to imagine. They are entrenched in the shadows like parasites. If we strike now, we will only fall into their trap."
"I don't care about any traps!" Wanda gritted her teeth, the Chaos Magic overflowing from her fingertips corroding deep pits into the floor. "Anyone who wants to hurt you must die!"
"I know. But what I want is to uproot them." Lynn leaned close to her ear, his voice soft but carrying a deadly seduction. "They treat me as a 'renegade' that can be discarded at any time, so we will prepare a grand funeral for them."
Lynn slowly released Wanda and walked to the tactical terminal.
He looked at the countdown on the screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He didn't need to fight the three helicarriers head-on; he just needed a perfect "substitution technique" to set this fire on another equally stubborn man.
Lynn typed a line of code, intercepted a portion of the "Elimination List" containing Pierce's digital signature, and packed it separately.
"System, activate the emotional shield at 10% power."
Lynn recited in his heart, suppressing all emotional fluctuations, and then pressed the send button.
In the recipient field of the email, a name was clearly filled in: Steve Rogers.
The progress bar filled up instantly.
At the very second the email was successfully sent, the Winter Soldier on the water tower 1,500 meters away slowly squeezed the trigger of the sniper rifle, the crosshairs locked tightly onto the window of the safe house.
Lynn turned his head abruptly, his gaze piercing through the night, looking precisely in the direction of the water tower. Then, he performed an action that everyone in the shadows would never have expected—
Chapter 20: Guiding Wanda, Shifting Hatred to HYDRA
The night wind poured into the room through the window cracks, carrying a hint of chilling murderous intent.
On an abandoned water tower 1,500 meters away, the Winter Soldier's metal left arm emitted an extremely faint sound of gears engaging.
In the sniper rifle's crosshairs, the man who should have been shot in the head actually pierced through the night with his gaze, staring directly back without any obstruction.
On Barnes's perpetually frozen face, his pupils constricted sharply.
Lynn's lips curled into a mocking arc.
He raised his right hand, gently placing his index finger against his lips, and made a silent "shh" gesture toward that direction.
Then, with a flick of his wrist, he yanked the pull cord by the wall.
Swish!
The heavy lead-lined bulletproof curtains closed perfectly, completely cutting off all cold, mechanical prying.
"Want to play sniper? You picked the wrong time." Lynnsneered in his heart.
Starting a war now would only disrupt his perfect rhythm of using others to do his dirty work.
This brainwashed mechanical head had to be left for Steve Rogers to deal with slowly.
His primary task was to put a precision-guided collar on this lioness in front of him who could go berserk at any moment.
Lynn turned around.
The smell of ozone in the bedroom was choking, mixed with the unique rose scent on Wanda.
She stood barefoot in the broken glass covering the floor, the hem of her nightgown fluttering wildly in the chaotic energy currents.
The scarlet particles dancing at her fingertips looked just like poisonous snakes ready to devour anyone at any moment.
He had to find her an outlet.
Lynn voluntarily withdrew the last bit of defense from his Chaos Magic Affinity, letting the magic that had just backflowed impact his meridians.
His figure swayed violently, and he knelt heavily on one knee on the floor, a suppressed, muffled cough rolling out of his throat.
Drip.
A drop of dark red blood hit the wooden floor, splashing into an eye-catching bloodstain.
"Lynn!"
Wanda screamed.
She instantly crossed the three-meter distance, her scalding palms gripping Lynn's arm tightly.
That extreme temperature felt as if it wanted to forcibly melt him into her own flesh and blood.
She stared fixedly at the bloodstain on the floor, the red light in her eyes so intense it was almost dripping blood.
"What did they do to you?!" Wanda's voice trembled violently, carrying World-destroying rage, "I'm going to kill that one-eyed man! I'm going to burn the whole building to ashes!"
"No... not Fury."
Lynn leaned into her embrace, greedily taking deep breaths.
He raised his hand, using his blood-stained thumb to gently caress Wanda's trembling lips.
Top-tier psychological game: seven parts truth, three parts lie.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. is just a shell on the surface." Lynndeliberately slowed his speech, letting every word hit the most sensitive nerves of the yandere, "The ones who truly want to sever the bond between us are a group of malignant tumors lurking at the roots."
"Who?" Wanda gritted her teeth, her nails digging deep into the fabric of Lynn's shoulder.
"HYDRA."
Lynn spat out the name, his tone carrying just the right amount of exhaustion and loathing.
"Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place. These people have no feelings and don't believe in any bonds. In their eyes, you are not a living person at all, but a 'tool' that can be used to deter the entire World."
Wanda's breath hitched.
In her simulated memories, those cold, cruel gazes that had watched her while she was locked in a cold laboratory—looking at her like a monster—perfectly overlapped with Lynn's description.
"And me..." Lynn gave a bitter smile, pointing to the purple-red bruises on his neck that he had made to make it look realistic, "Because I refused to hand over the authority to control you to them, refused to treat you as a weapon... I have become a 'rogue ninja' on their must-kill list."
"Rogue ninja?"
"It means a variable that must be completely erased." Lynnlooked directly into those eyes that were turning from deep green to red, his voice low and resolute, "The energy burst just now has made them completely lose their patience. Their primary goal now is to erase me from your side, forever."
Erase.
These two words, like a rusty, dull knife, precisely sliced open the absolute reverse scale deep within Wanda's soul.
In the ruins of Sokovia, the tragic scene of Lynn blocking the sky full of lasers with his back, dying in her arms with a thousand bullets piercing his heart, was tearing at her sanity like a nightmare.
"No one is allowed to erase you!"
Boom!
Violent Chaos Magic exploded from the center of Wanda, skimming across the ground.
The gravity of the entire room failed completely at this moment.
The bed, the broken desk lamp, and even the wall plaster all floated eerily in mid-air.
Wanda hugged Lynn's neck tightly, with enough force to almost snap his cervical spine.
"Whoever dares to touch you, I will make them watch with their own eyes as their internal organs are crushed bit by bit! HYDRA... I will kill them all! Not a single one left!"
Feeling the yandere Witch completely turn the spearhead of her destructive desire toward HYDRA, Lynn let out a long sigh of relief in his heart.
A perfect shift of blame.
The power of this talk-no-jutsu was comparable to the highest level of illusion.
"I believe in you, my girl." Lynn hugged her back, gently patting her on the back, "But now the enemy is in the dark and we are in the light; we cannot be reckless. HYDRA has infiltrated the entire system; we need patience and to wait for them to reveal their flaws."
Wanda buried her face deep in Lynn's neck, greedily feeling the rhythm of his carotid artery beating.
"I will listen to everything you say." Her voice was muffled, revealing a kind of pathological obedience and attachment.
But the next second, Lynn's Top-tier Spider-Sensesuddenly went crazy.
He clearly felt that although Wanda had calmed down on the surface, the hand she had behind her back was silently releasing thousands of tiny scarlet particles outward.
These particles, like living poisonous insects, drilled into the ground through the gaps in the floor and spread wildly in all directions silently.
"What are you doing?" Lynn asked tentatively.
Wanda raised her head and gave him a beautiful yet hair-raising smile.
"Since they want to hide in the dark..." She stuck out her scarlet tongue and licked the blood from the corner of Lynn's mouth with extreme obsession, "Then I will cover the entire New York underground with my eyes. As long as those bugs dare to get within one hundred meters of you..."
Wanda's five fingers clenched suddenly.
Bang!
The solid wood wardrobe floating in mid-air was instantly crushed by an invisible force into wood shavings smaller than a fingernail, falling down in a flurry.
"I will let them know what real hell is."
Lynn watched those magic marks spreading toward the entire city like a scarlet spider web, a cold sweat breaking out on his back.
This woman, had she actually turned half of New York into her absolute alert zone without anyone noticing?
Just then, the tactical terminal screen in the corner lit up dimly.
An email with the "Sacred Avengers" cipher showed that it had been read by the recipient.
Lynn narrowed his eyes.
Steve Rogers, when you see the densely packed names on that "Insight Project" purge list, will your pride-filled sense of justice still allow you to sit still?
Chapter 21: Whoever Dares to Tear Us Apart, Scarlet Killing Intent Surges Beneath the Surface
Lynn's fingertips left the Enter key, and the progress bar on the tactical terminal screen vanished completely.
That remnant of the "Insight Project," which he had meticulously trimmed to retain only the core purge list and the underlying HYDRA algorithms, had transformed into a string of untraceable encrypted code, precisely delivered into Steve Rogers' encrypted inbox.
After finishing all this, Lynn leaned back against the chair.
The air was filled with a pungent smell of ozone, mingled with the unique scent of roses that clung to Wanda. This aroma was extremely aggressive, rushing straight into the brain through the nasal cavity.
Wanda pressed against him from behind. She was barefoot, and her arms, like soft yet deadly vines, tightly coiled around Lynn's neck. Her burning body temperature was transmitted through his thin shirt, and Lynn could clearly feel the heart in her chest beating at a violent frequency.
"They are afraid."
Wanda rested her chin on Lynn's shoulder, her eyes half-closed, and a sickly arc curled at the corners of her mouth.
Her voice was extremely soft, yet it carried a hair-raising sense of pleasure.
As her voice faded, Lynn clearly captured, through his Spider-Sense, those scarlet particles that had seeped into the ground through the floor cracks, having already crossed dozens of kilometers of physical distance like a virus.
Washington D.C., the Triskelion.
Inside the heavy hangar on the fifth underground level, Crossbones Rumlow was biting on an unlit cigar, looking down as he loaded armor-piercing rounds into the Glock pistol in his hand.
Amidst the crisp sound of brass casings sliding into the magazine, his movements suddenly paused.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up without warning. Rumlow whipped his head around, his sharp gaze sweeping across the empty corridor. Apart from the dull humming of the exhaust fan, there was nothing.
But he did not see that, right in the shadow of his military boots, a wisp of scarlet energy, a hundred times finer than a strand of hair, was silently climbing up his pant leg, eventually vanishing into his spine.
At the same time, inside the Director's office on the top floor.
Alexander Pierce picked up the bone china coffee cup on his desk, and just as he brought it to his lips, an extremely faint static charge suddenly surged through his fingertips.
"Snap."
The cup wall cracked without warning. Hot black coffee dripped onto the expensive Persian rug, seeping into a dark stain. Pierce frowned, tugging at his tie in irritation; he felt as though his breathing was somewhat constricted, as if an invisible hand were loosely gripping his throat.
The entire Triskelion, from the security in the underground garage to the HYDRA Agents in the core control room.
Two thousand four hundred and seventy-one heartbeats.
Two thousand four hundred and seventy-one breaths.
At this moment, all were tightly entangled by dense, scarlet threads.
"Found them..."
Inside the safe house, Wanda suddenly opened her eyes. Those once clear green eyes were now completely dyed blood-red by the roiling Chaos Magic.
She gasped in excitement, her fingers slowly closing in the void, as if she were toying with a piece of art that could be easily crushed.
"Lynn, I can hear the sound of their blood flowing." Wandaturned her head, her hot breath hitting the side of Lynn's face. Her tone carried a sickly sense of seeking approval and paranoia, "That old man named Pierce, and that scarred face who pointed a gun at you... Just nod, and in three seconds."
She held up three fingers, destructive red light dancing at her fingertips.
"In three seconds, I will have all the insects in that building who harbor malice toward you, along with their bones, crushed into a puddle of mush."
Wanda's killing intent was nearing its breaking point. The tragic scene of Lynn being pierced by thousands of bullets in the simulated memory was tormenting her sanity at every moment. Those HYDRA members who attempted to erase Lynn as a "rogue ninja" and use her as a "vessel" did not deserve to live in this World.
Whoever dared to tear them apart must die.
Lynn watched that terrifying energy at her fingertips, enough to instantly wipe out half of Washington, and a layer of cold sweat faintly broke out on his back.
An assassination trap set by a Skyfather-level combatant was simply unreasonable. The defense system that HYDRA prided itself on was not even as good as paper in the face of Chaos Magic.
But he could not let Wanda take action now.
If the Triskelion exploded now, Pierce died suddenly, and the Insight Project aborted, the HYDRA within S.H.I.E.L.D.would suffer heavy losses, but Nick Fury and Captain America would never be able to see just how rotten this behemoth had become.
Most importantly, once Wanda displayed this indiscriminate slaughter capability, she would immediately become the number one public enemy of the entire World, including the Avengers.
What Lynn wanted was to be the chess player behind the scenes, not to take a rampaging yandere to challenge the entire Marvel Universe alone.
"Stop, Wanda."
Lynn turned around and grasped her wrist suspended in mid-air.
His strength was not great, but it carried an unquestionable determination. The moment the Chaos Magic touched Lynn's skin, it was like ice meeting fire, automatically retracting its violent barbs and submissively winding between his fingers.
The excitement on Wanda's face instantly froze.
"Why?" She bit her lower lip, a flash of extreme irritation and grievance appearing in her eyes, "They want to kill you! They treat you as a pawn that can be discarded at any time! I will absolutely not allow anyone to threaten your safety!"
"I know."
Lynn raised his hand, his thumb gently caressing her tense cheek, and with the gentlest tone, he spoke his most cunning calculation.
"But slaughter is the lowest form of revenge."
Lynn looked directly into those scarlet eyes, his tone carrying a hint of seduction: "What does HYDRA care about most? It is the order hidden in the shadows, the sense of control from playing with the entire World in the palm of their hands. If we destroy the building now, we will become Terrorists in the open."
He paused, throwing out that classic term from the Naruto worldview.
"At that point, those who claim to be justice, the 'Jade,' like Captain America, will turn their spears toward you. They will use the banner of protecting the World to try to sever the bond between us."
Hearing the words "sever the bond," Wanda's pupils constricted sharply, and the red light at her fingertips flickered violently.
"They dare!"
"Of course they dare." Lynn pulled her into his arms, his chin resting against her hair, while his gaze stared coldly at the night outside the window, "So, we cannot be the ones to stick our necks out. I want HYDRA to reveal their trump cards themselves, exposing them to the sunlight."
A cold smile curled at the corners of Lynn's mouth.
"I want that man holding the shield to see with his own eyes how the institution he swore to defend has become a monster covered in poisonous fangs. Let him smash HYDRA's dream with his own hands. And we..."
Lynn patted Wanda's back, his voice low and dangerous: "Just need to sit in the audience. When they have bitten each other until both sides are crippled, then we crush their last hope."
Wanda leaned against Lynn's chest, listening to his steady and powerful heartbeat.
She didn't really understand those complex political games, but she understood one thing: Lynn was protecting her; Lynn was planning a future where they could be together forever, undisturbed by anyone.
"I will listen to you."
The scarlet in Wanda's eyes slowly faded, restoring her clear green eyes. Like a cat that had been stroked, she rubbed greedily against Lynn.
"However..." Wanda suddenly looked up, her eyes revealing a paranoid cunning, "The mark I left in their bones will not be withdrawn. As long as that old man named Pierce dares to issue an attack order against you, his heart will instantly burst."
This was her bottom line.
Lynn smiled and did not refuse: "As you like."
A Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of HYDRA; it was good to keep it.
...
At the same time. Washington D.C., a secret apartment not registered in the S.H.I.E.L.D. system.
Steve Rogers, wearing a gray short-sleeve shirt soaked with sweat, pushed open the door to the apartment. He had just finished a morning run of twenty laps around the Lincoln Memorial, without even panting.
Walking to the fridge to take out a bottle of ice water, Steve unscrewed the cap and took a big gulp, his gaze habitually sweeping toward the old military laptop on the desk.
In the bottom right corner of the screen, an email marked with the highest encryption level was flashing frantically.
The sender was unknown, and the title had only five words: [Holy Avengers].
Steve's movements paused. He put down the water bottle, walked to the desk, and typed in a long string of complex decryption characters.
The email popped open.
There was no body text, only a massive data attachment.
The moment Steve clicked on the attachment, blue holographic light illuminated his determined face, which was gradually becoming rigid.
It was a list.
A death list long enough to make one's scalp tingle.
Steve scrolled the mouse wheel, his gaze quickly scanning over those names.
Tony Stark.
Bruce Banner.
Stephen Strange.
Even... Steve Rogers.
And above these names, it was clearly stamped with the electronic signature of the current highest authority of S.H.I.E.L.D.—Alexander Pierce!
"Insight Project... Zola Algorithm..."
Steve whispered those cold code logics on the screen, the veins on the back of his hand gripping the mouse bulging. His pride in his sense of justice and the last shred of trust in S.H.I.E.L.D. were collapsing in the face of this iron-clad data.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had been completely hollowed out by HYDRA!
Just as Steve was about to contact Nick Fury to verify this intelligence, his gaze suddenly locked onto a hidden attachment at the very end of the list.
The icon for that attachment was a red five-pointed star, with a line of small text below it: [Winter Soldier · Top Secret Operation Log].
Steve's breath caught sharply. With trembling hands, he clicked on that attachment.
A blurry black-and-white photo popped up.
In the photo, a man with long hair and a metal left arm was crouching in the night, holding a sniper rifle.
Looking at that face, so familiar it was etched into his bones, Steve Rogers abruptly stood up, his chair behind him overturned heavily onto the floor.
"Bucky..."
Steve stared fixedly at the screen, his mind blank.
Just then.
"Knock, knock, knock."
The apartment's security door was suddenly knocked on three times, unhurriedly, from the outside.
Chapter 22: Fury's Probe, The Return of Captain America Steve
"Knock, knock, knock."
The old security door was knocked on three times, with an even force and an unyielding firmness that brooked no refusal.
Steve Rogers snapped back to reality. Without a moment's hesitation, his rough fingertips instantly pressed the physical destruction key on the keyboard. A muffled micro-explosion sounded from inside the computer case; the remaining fragments of the "Insight Project" file, which were enough to overturn the entire World, along with the hard drive, turned into a pile of unrecoverable charred scrap.
After finishing this, he took a deep breath, straightened the overturned chair, and strode toward the door. The moment he twisted the doorknob, a thick smell of cigars mixed with cold wind rushed toward him.
Under the dim sensor lights of the hallway, Nick Fury was wearing his signature black leather trench coat, his only remaining eye bloodshot from staying up late. He didn't exchange pleasantries, stepping past Steve's broad shoulders, his gaze scanning the room like a searchlight.
"Aren't you going to invite me in for a glass of water, Captain?" Fury's voice was hoarse, carrying a hint of imperceptible anxiety.
"There's only ice water in the fridge, Officer." Steve turned sideways, his muscles tensed beneath his sweat-dampened gray short-sleeved shirt. He keenly caught a few unnatural wrinkles at the hem of Fury's leather jacket—the telltale sign of a bulletproof vest. What was this Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. afraid of?
Fury walked into the room and casually tossed a holographic projector onto the wooden table. A blue beam of light instantly lit up, projecting two photos into mid-air.
One was the scarred landing pad of the Triskelion, where a scarlet energy storm twisted space as if it were tangible.
The other was a young Agent with delicate features, wearing a standard field uniform. He was looking down, held tightly in the arms of the Witch who was wrapped in destructive power.
Steve's pupils shrank violently. His gaze was pinned to the young Agent's face in the photo.
Just five minutes ago, in that top-secret email titled [Divine Avengers], the only contact avatar attached was this very face!
"Lynn. A Level 3 logistics Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." Furywalked to the window and pulled the blinds, completely isolating them from prying eyes outside. "This is the information in our files. But just twelve hours ago, this 'low-level Agent' walked into my building, carrying a nuclear bomb capable of flattening half of North America."
Steve suppressed the raging storm in his heart and threw out a feint in his calmest tone: "A Mutant? She looks out of control. Why didn't you take mandatory measures?"
"Because whoever touches him, dies." Fury turned around, his one eye staring fixedly at Steve, enunciating each word heavily. "Crossbones' task force was crushed by her like pinching a stink bug. And this guy named Lynn didn't have a heart rate exceeding sixty-five the entire time. He's not a victim being coerced; he is the one holding the detonator."
Fury stepped closer and lowered his voice: "He treats that Witch as his own 'Vessel'. An absolutely loyal, extremely dangerous weapon. I need you to step up, Captain. Go contact him and evaluate his true stance. If he leans toward HYDRA..."
The corner of Steve's eye twitched imperceptibly.
HYDRA. Fury actually mentioned HYDRA in front of him. Was it a probe? Or was Fury himself kept in the dark?
"If he is a threat, what should I do?" Steve met Fury's gaze, his tone stiff.
"Figure out his bottom line." Fury patted Steve's shoulder. "S.H.I.E.L.D. needs you, this perfect 'Jade', to stabilize that madman."
After sending Fury off, Steve stood by the window, watching the black Chevrolet SUV disappear into the night. He looked down at the thick calluses on his palms, the corners of his mouth curling into a cold arc.
Fury thought he was sending him to probe a dangerous element, but he didn't know that this was playing right into that "dangerous element's" hands.
The next morning, in Brooklyn.
Cold air blew into the street along the Hudson River, rolling up a few withered yellow leaves. Lynn pushed open the iron gate of the safe house, taking a deep breath of air mixed with car exhaust and morning dew.
He didn't bring Wanda today. Before leaving, he had used a three-minute deep kiss, plus a line, "I need to go buy those cinnamon rolls you love, be a good girl and wait for me at home," to successfully soothe the lioness who was ready to go berserk at any moment on the sofa.
Of course, Lynn knew very well that Wanda's Chaos Magicmark was currently like an invisible film, tightly adhered to the surface of his skin. As long as he suffered even the slightest fatal threat, half the block would turn to dust in an instant.
Lynn walked with his hands in his trench coat pockets, casually turning two corners. His Top-tier Spider-Senseemitted a regular, low-frequency hum in his mind.
At twelve o'clock, a field Agent disguised as a homeless man.
At three o'clock, a van parked next to a fire hydrant.
And...
Lynn's footsteps stopped in front of an old-fashioned bakery. The rich, burnt, bitter smell of coffee beans mixed with the sweet scent of cinnamon wafted out. He pushed open the glass door, and the copper bell on the door gave a crisp ding.
There weren't many guests in the shop. Lynn walked straight to the counter and ordered a cinnamon roll and two cups of black coffee. Carrying the tray, he didn't head toward the empty booths but turned and walked straight toward the burly man in the corner wearing a gray baseball cap and reading a newspaper with his head down.
"Bang."
Two cups of scalding black coffee were placed heavily on the wooden table. The coffee liquid sloshed violently at the rim of the cups, nearly spilling over.
The man wearing the baseball cap paused, a deep crease pinched into the edge of the newspaper.
"Your heart rate is half that of an ordinary person, and your breathing interval is seven seconds long." Lynn pulled out a chair and sat down boldly, his gaze piercing directly into the shadow under the other man's brim. "Disguising yourself as an ordinary person reading a newspaper—this trick is really too crude for someone with super-perception. Don't you agree, Captain Rogers?"
Steve Rogers slowly lowered the newspaper and looked up. Those azure-blue eyes held the sharpness and scrutiny of someone who had been through countless battles.
"Fury says you are an extremely dangerous mastermind." Steve didn't touch the coffee on the table, his voice low and carrying an unquestionable sense of oppression. "It seems he underestimated your intelligence capabilities."
"Director Fury is used to treating everyone he doesn't have absolute control over as a weapon that might backfire at any moment." Lynn picked up the coffee and took a sip. As the bitter liquid slid down his throat, a hint of exhaustion and self-mockery appeared in his eyes at just the right moment.
Oscar-level acting, officially online.
"But I am not a weapon, Captain. I am just a low-level Agent who can be tossed into the meat grinder as cannon fodder at any time." Lynn leaned back on the chair, his fingertips tapping rhythmically on the table. "When you were sleeping under the glacier, the World outside had already rotted through. Some people, for the sake of so-called 'order', can turn living people into mindless 'Vessels' without hesitation."
Hearing the word "Vessel", Steve's brows furrowed tightly. Fury had used this word last night too. But the meaning in Lynn's words was completely different.
"Are you referring to that Mutant girl?" Steve tentatively threw out a feint. "You used some means to control her, in order to blackmail S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Control?" Lynn seemed to have heard some extremely absurd joke. He leaned forward abruptly, resting his elbows on the table, his eyes becoming extremely aggressive in an instant. "Captain, have you been to the ruins of Sokovia? Have you tasted the feeling of an armor-piercing bullet tearing through your spine, and blood blocking your trachea?"
Steve's breath hitched. In Lynn's eyes, he saw a kind of extreme madness that had truly experienced a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, facing death head-on. That kind of look couldn't be faked.
"I didn't control her. I just blocked the bullet that should have killed her in those ruins." Lynn's speaking speed slowed down, each word striking precisely at Steve's moral soft spot. "I pulled her out of hell, and now, some higher-ups in S.H.I.E.L.D. want to push us back into the abyss. They want to strip away her will and turn her into the next..."
Lynn paused deliberately, his gaze locking onto Steve's eyes, spitting out the last few words: "...brainwashed killing machine."
These words were like a heavy hammer, smashing fiercely against Steve's nerves.
Brainwashed. Killing machine.
That black-and-white photo of someone holding a sniper rifle exploded in Steve's mind again. Bucky!
Steve's fists under the table clenched tightly, his knuckles making a slight cracking sound. The guard he originally held against Lynn wavered violently at this moment. The young man in front of him was not the ambitious terrorist Fury described, but a lone wolf forced to declare war on the entire corrupt system to protect his lover.
The air between the two seemed to freeze. The conversations of surrounding guests and the roar of the coffee machine all faded away at this moment.
Steve took a deep breath. He knew that conventional probing was meaningless. Facing a variable who dared to poke a hole in the sky, he had to reveal his cards directly.
He suddenly leaned forward, his broad shoulders blocking almost all the light coming in from the window. His resolute face approached Lynn, his voice lowered to the limit frequency that only the two of them could hear.
"You say you're just an ordinary person who wants to survive, Lynn." Steve stared into Lynn's eyes, throwing out the fatal question. "Then, tell me. Why would an ordinary logistics Agent know about the 'Zola Algorithm'?"
Lynn's right hand, which was just about to pick up the coffee cup, paused in mid-air with extreme naturalness.
On the surface of the coffee, his slightly lowered eyes were reflected.
The next second, Lynn raised his eyelids, the corners of his mouth slowly curling into a meaningful arc.
"Because..." Lynn grabbed the coffee cup backhand, his fingertips grazing the side of the cup lightly. "I don't just know the Zola Algorithm. I also know that the killer who aimed a sniper rifle at me on the water tower last night—his left arm is metal."