August closed the door to the basement with an electronic key and wiped his hands with a rag as he slowly climbed the stairs. He didn't end up doing anything to the Widow. It was pointless to torture or somehow try to get information out of her. She was a spy with special training, and while he would be able to get something useful out of her, her support group, Shield, would be three times over. Torturing their agent was unlikely to please Shields and it would prevent them from building any kind of relationship with them.
As much as August doesn't want to get involved in Shield's business, it's going to be very hard to get out of it. The ideal solution would be to build a neutral relationship or a "you to me and I to you" type of relationship. The mercenary didn't want to run and fight with uber beings for nothing.
Earlier he had planned to help Anita, "put her on her feet" and after receiving the money to return to the "welcoming" wastelands of middle Asia. But the future is a volatile thing. No matter how you plan, at one moment all your plans can take a completely different path.
While August was in Afghanistan, he did not observe celibacy and managed to have relationships with many women. All of these relationships were based on carnal attraction and nothing else. Having received an assignment from the system and a contract from Anita herself, the mercenary left Afghanistan without even saying goodbye to anyone. There is no normal communication with the rest of the world in Afghanistan, perhaps his former acquaintances have long ago counted him among the dead.
When he first entered this world, he felt a kind of emptiness and loneliness inside him. He had no one he could trust. Terrorists and anonymous organisations were announcing a bounty on his head and some couldn't go against their temptation, the amounts were quite high. Even the women he slept with constantly betrayed him. There was no order in the chaos-soaked territory.
Arriving with Anita in the US had gradually changed his mind. There was relative order in this country. His desire to return back to Afghanistan, however, was unwavering. There he felt at ease.
Month after month passed next to Stark, who was always pestering and trying to seduce him. The banal desire of the male organism grew and that evening at Osborn Manor became fatal in the mercenary's plans. He could not get Norma out of his head, she was too good-natured and sweet woman. For the first time possessive desires played in his head and he left his contacts with Norma. Sometimes in the evenings they would check in with each other on the phone. The woman was bored and wanted to see him soon.
Afghanistan didn't seem as good a place as it used to be. If he went back there, he would be a regular loner again. So in his subconscious mind he was no longer subconsciously considering going back to Afghanistan, but planning his future in the US.
He could not work as a lone mercenary forever. So his speed of development would be noticeably reduced, and he would have no support behind him. Something had to be done. He had many ideas in his head, but they all ran into the system. Would the system accept the innovations, would the money earned this way count?
In general, these are plans for the distant future. Now the main thing is to deal with Shield and build a more or less neutral relationship.
Coming up from the basement to the living room, August came across the following picture. A somewhat frightened and depressed Pepper was sitting on the couch, with a wheelchair next to her and a smirking Anita. Across from them were two people in black suits, a man and a woman.
When August came up to them from the basement, the whole company turned their attention to him.
"Is everything all right in the basement? - one of the agents asked.
"Well, how can I put it?" said August, forcing a smile out of himself. He wanted to tickle the agents' nerves a little, but apparently they had already checked everything on the cameras. So the question was more to tickle August's nerves. - Natasha and I had a nice chat.
Footsteps were heard from the cellar and a slightly dishevelled spy appeared on the stairs. She cast an embittered glance at the mercenary.
Natasha's release did not surprise the mercenary in any way. It was about what he had expected from her. Even in the middle of the interrogation, he noticed that the girl's restraints had loosened considerably. She was just waiting for the man to leave her so that she could make her escape.
"I had a nice chat with Augustus, I'm fine," the spy said in a friendly manner and walked over to the mercenary's back and placed a palm on his shoulder. The mercenary realised from the palm pressed firmly on his shoulder that Natasha was extremely angry with him. Her words were just plain lies.
"Miss Stark, we'd like to speak to you alone," the male agent said.
"I don't see the point in a private conversation. You can trust my people," Anita grinned provocatively, folding her arms across her chest.
"Miss Stark, I insist. We have a proposition for you. Only I will go with you, the rest of you will stay here.
"Anita, please listen to this man," Pepper touched Stark's knees excitedly.
Anita shifted her gaze to her friend, then to August standing next to Natasha and sighed.
"Okay, just make it quick.
The male agent stood up and rolled Stark's pram into the guest room on the ground floor. There were no cameras in the guest rooms and Shields knew that from somewhere.
"What are we going to do? - The Widow leaned intimately into August's ear and then blew on it. From the outside it might have looked like a flirtation, but the mercenary clearly felt the murderous intent coming from the girl.
While the agent and Stark talked in a separate room. August sat down next to Pepper, feeling the Widow's burning gaze on him. There was silence in the room, no one was going to say anything. This tension lasted until the agent left the room with Anita. Stark had lost all smile from her face, after the conversation with the Shield agent she was thinking about something tensely.
The agents along with Natasha said their goodbyes and left in a black sonata.
"August, if I do something unreasonable, will you support me? - Anita said suddenly.
"I can't tell you exactly until you tell me exactly what you want to do.
"One crazy action that will change my life.
...
Just as August had anticipated. After returning to headquarters in New York, Natasha wrote a detailed report and character reference on Anita Stark. Stark's mercenary was also mentioned in the report, suggesting his affiliation with Hydra and his approximate level of strength. The report from the European branch, the mercenary's suspicious reaction to her inspection and some of his knowledge of her background were used as evidence of his ties to Hydra.
The Shield Directoress who had received the report hadn't paid much attention to Natasha's speculation. There was no direct evidence of August's connection to Hydra, but several special agents had been sent to follow the mercenary. He knew the classified information about their agent's background from somewhere, they needed to find out his source.
A strange report about a newly minted Hydra agent had caught the attention of a senior member of the think tank. A glint flashed in his eyes as he read the speculation about the Stark mercenary and discreetly copied the data onto a black USB stick and gave it to one of the Shield agents.
Hydra's main New York branch received the flash drive with the report and sent the information to all the other branches. In a couple of days, a monthly meeting of all American Hydra chapters would be organised, where the information received would be the first to be brought up for questioning. Only current chapter leaders could attend the meeting.
"Fraulein, the meeting will begin in five minutes. All equipment is ready.
The black-haired woman in a leather coat sitting behind the empty desk said nothing. The reporting soldier saluted and left the room.
After the allotted minutes, the dark room was filled with light. The light came from unusual platforms. Their metal parts opened up like petals and emitted a pleasant bluish moonlight. Gradually, impersonal human figures began to form from the centre of the platforms with the blue light.
Sitting back down, the woman greeted each figure that appeared. Over thirty people showed up for the convocation of the American chapters. All of them were the heads of the major American cells of Hydra.
"To begin discussing the main purpose of today's meeting, I'd like to focus a bit on the report our chapter recently received. Everyone is probably familiar with it by now," the black-haired woman began as the holograms listened in silence. - Our World War II laboratory in Europe has been decommissioned, and the only surviving fully preserved sample is missing.
"Project Nemesis was considered a failure, and the data we had confirmed it," the hologram closest to the black-haired girl answered.
"Apparently, while the laboratory was mothballed, some external factors affected the bodies of the test subjects and one of the bodies awakened.
"That can't be! All the test subjects died during the tests, it was found out that the human body can not withstand the full impact of the serum "Nemesis", - answered another woman.
"Then if they all died. How do you explain this recent information?! - growled the woman, standing up abruptly and leaning over the table. Her black coat opened her chest and a silver swastika cross hung in the air. A fierce fire and madness burned in the woman's eyes. - The test subject's body from the lab was missing, and a superhuman with pure, unaffected by the X-gene mutation blood had appeared in the world from somewhere. Even if he does not belong to our lab and is not a member of our organisation, we must make attempts to recruit him!
The holograms whispered amongst themselves. The New York branch leader's words sounded reasonable. But many had doubts about August's superhuman abilities. The mercenary had never once demonstrated his special abilities in public, everything was within human capabilities. But even so, his qualifications were not in doubt. He was able to single-handedly repel the attack of two supervillains and at least his strength was close to peak human capabilities. After special training, he would make a perfect liquidator like the Winter Soldier.
A general decision was made. First, they would try to build a friendship with the mercenary and find out about his affiliation to their organisation. If the affiliation is not confirmed, then recruitment methods will be undertaken. Everything must take place discreetly. Alexandra Pierce, the chairwoman of the World Security Council, has been chosen to carry out this plan.
Having dealt with a minor matter, the black-haired woman with the Nazi cross around her neck turned to the main topic of today's meeting. Her face warmed and the madness from her eyes disappeared, but it was only a brief moment. All the chapter leaders in the meeting knew that the leader of the New York Hydra cell had a serious personality disorder.
"How are you doing with Project Insight?
...
Shield was originally a US extra-governmental military, counter-terrorism and intelligence agency whose purpose was to preserve world security. Founded shortly after the Allied victory over the Axis countries and Hydra in World War II, Shield was organised to protect the US, and later the world, from all possible threats. At this point, the Shield was under the control of two forces, Directoress Nicky Fury and the World Security Council.
The World Security Council had full access to Shield's database. As soon as Shield knew the identity of the pilot of the iron suit, the security council knew about it immediately. The people on the council couldn't pass up such a discovery. In their opinion, Stark had deceived them when she claimed to have stopped producing weapons while actually continuing to develop them.
An iron suit with the ability to fly was classified by them as an advanced next-generation weapon, and of course they wanted to get their hands on the technology. Planning to start producing such weapons for the elite units of the U.S. Army. The Council first wanted to get their hands on Stark's technology illegally, but since that didn't work out, they decided to steal from Anita "officially".
After communicating with a Shield agent, Stark quickly realised this and decided not to wait for the authorities to act. As a matter of urgency, the girl organised a new press conference.
The new press conference was organised in the auditorium of Stark Industries. Representatives of all American and European media were invited there. There were still plenty of seats left, so invitations were also sent to large companies that co-operate or support Stark Industries.
August stood next to Stark and looked judgementally into those shameless eyes. This time, the girl decided not to hide anything and so she was going to go out to the audience on her own with the support of the spinal module on her back.
"Don't look at me like that, you're my bodyguard," Anita patted August on the shoulder.
"I'm not looking at you in any way, don't make it up," the mercenary waved the redhead away.
"Anita Stark, I hope you won't do something unreasonable. It could ruin our relationship with you. - A pair of women in a suit and black glasses. It was impossible not to recognise the Shield agents. The upcoming press conference had alarmed the security council and they'd bypassed Headmistress Fury to send a couple of agents to monitor the situation.
"Anita, you'll be out in a minute! - Shouted the organiser.
Looking at the two Shield agents, Stark grinned. That grin made the agents uneasy.
The lights in the hall dimmed and music started playing. Under the spotlight, Stark walked out to the audience on the stage. Anita's appearance on her own two stunned the reporters and company representatives sitting in the audience.
Taking the microphone in her hands, the red-haired girl began her routine speech. She bragged about the company's success in the American and European markets, announced the imminent release of a new electric car, thanked business partners. Everything was normal, the speech was ordinary and the Shield agents sent by the council calmed down. Apparently Anita decided to listen to the voice of reason and not try to confront them in any way.
August noticed how, during the speech, Anita carefully shifted her gaze to him, and then smiled.
"Since my return from terrorist captivity in Afghanistan, every press conference I've given has blown up the news media, well, you've come here looking for hot news and I'm going to give it to you.
A couple of Shield agents put their palms to their ears and started talking to someone quickly on their micro-headset. Once they received the command, they headed towards the reporters broadcasting Stark's speech live. The road was blocked by August with a smile on his face.
"Dear guests, let's not cause unnecessary trouble, shall we?
"Get out of the way," one of the agents said demandingly, the other had already pulled out a stun gun from inside his jacket and stabbed it towards the mercenary.
August shifted his gaze downwards and knocked the stun gun out of the girl's hands with a hard blow. The wrist sagged from the blow and clutching the damaged limb, the girl agent retreated behind her partner's back.
"Lately there has been a lot of news on the net about the new superheroine "Iron Lady", I have sensational information about this superheroine...
The eyes of the reporters lit up, there was even a commotion in the hall. News of a new superheroine appearing first on the streets of New York and then in Afghanistan was quickly gaining popularity in the Internet space.
"Get out of my way now! - the girl snarled and lunged at August, trying to take him down. Her partner with a broken wrist ran past them to the reporters broadcasting live.
After throwing the first girl over himself, August quickly caught up with the second girl and knocked her out with a hard kick to the head.
"I am the Iron Lady! - Stark spread her arms to her side and smiled broadly, revealing her even white teeth.
Dozens of cameras clicked, journalists and company representatives rose from their seats.
"Miss Stark!
"Anita Stark!
Anita's words turned the press conference into chaos.
***
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