"Luca, how do you plan to deal with the remaining Skrulls hiding on Earth?"
Dr. Banner's serious question jolted Luca out of his daydream.
"Huh?"
Seeing Luca's blank expression, the group froze, a little confused themselves.
Dr. Banner had to repeat the question.
This time, Luca looked utterly baffled.
"Wait... why are you asking me?"
To be honest, Luca hadn't really thought about it.
In theory, he was just an auxiliary member of the Avengers. Sure, he got along well with most of the team, but he had always kept himself somewhat detached.
He didn't see himself as a self-sacrificing hero. Aside from showing up for the big, world-ending events, he barely participated in the day-to-day crime-fighting stuff—hell, Gwen, the girl from another dimension, did more hero work than he did.
And after every major crisis, he usually just dusted off his hands and left.
Hunting down Dark Elves or Frost Giants? Mopping up Hydra remnants? Resettling refugees after New York got wrecked?
Luca usually just threw some Aurantius Group money at the problem or provided some tech support from the sidelines. He rarely got his hands dirty with the follow-up.
He wasn't one of the "Big Three" or a founding leader. Why would this fall on him?
But then, Luca's gaze drifted over to Natasha, who was still "watering" the cubes, and realization hit him.
"Ah..."
Normally, Steve and Tony were the ones calling the shots, making the hard decisions and handling the logistics. S.H.I.E.L.D. usually acted as the cleanup crew under their direction.
But right now, Steve and Tony were still unconscious.
And S.H.I.E.L.D.? After a screw-up of this magnitude, they'd be lucky to survive at all. More likely, they were about to be disbanded permanently.
At the end of the day, even though S.H.I.E.L.D. operated heavily on US soil, it was nominally a global organization.
The Hydra incident was an internal failure that nearly destroyed them. They had barely survived that by the skin of their teeth, largely because the US was in chaos and no one else had the time to kick them while they were down.
But this time? The Skrulls under Nick Fury's "command" had created a catastrophe that directly threatened global security.
Even if the public didn't know the full extent yet, once the dust settled, S.H.I.E.L.D. would almost certainly have to be sacrificed to appease the world's governments.
So, if you take S.H.I.E.L.D. out of the equation...
Look at the active Avengers right now: Banner, Gwen, Harry, Otto, Bucky... half of them were muscle-heads, and the other half were newbies.
Natasha was the only one with real leadership experience.
But Natasha seemed to be actively avoiding taking charge. No wonder they were all looking at him with such expectant eyes.
Dammit...
So after all this, I've become one of the Big Three by default? Luca grumbled internally once he put the pieces together.
But the problem still needed solving. Now that he was mortal enemies with the Skrulls, he couldn't leave any loose ends. If he didn't wipe out the green-skins properly, some "Skrull remnant" would inevitably pop up later to annoy him.
In Luca's eyes, there were no "good Skrulls" or "bad Skrulls."
Once you chose to stand on the opposite side, you better be prepared for the consequences.
"First, release all the intel on what the Skrulls planned to do," Luca said finally.
"Enslaving humanity, impersonating officials to topple governments, hijacking nuclear silos... Make sure the entire world nails them to the cross as enemies of humanity."
"As for the tactical intel—their transformation quirks, memory extraction tech, superpower grafting, and the fact that wounding them reveals their green skin—release all of that under the Avengers' name too."
"As for the full story of how this happened..."
Luca hesitated.
He knew that without S.H.I.E.L.D. watching his back, hunting down Skrulls globally would be a nightmare.
Releasing the intel on how to identify them would help the public. But governments? That was a different story.
High-ranking officials in certain countries might not want to exterminate a species of natural-born spies. If even a paranoid guy like Nick Fury wanted to use the Skrulls, you could bet other nations with fewer scruples would try to hoard them as assets.
That was why Luca wanted to expose their crimes first. Make them so toxic that anyone harboring them would be seen as an enemy of the human race.
But even then, without an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. with global reach and enforcement power, some factions would inevitably hide Skrulls away.
Of course, Luca didn't care about saving S.H.I.E.L.D.'s reputation.
But if S.H.I.E.L.D. could stick around just long enough to clean up this mess before being disbanded...
"Release the full story too."
While Luca was hesitating, Natasha—who had finished "watering" the cubes ages ago and was just pretending to check the stasis pods—finally spoke up.
Her eyes held a hint of sadness, but her gaze was resolute.
"If S.H.I.E.L.D. caused this disaster, then S.H.I.E.L.D. should bear the responsibility. As for the consequences... let the World Security Council and the world decide."
Her voice was slightly hoarse.
Unlike the other agents, S.H.I.E.L.D. meant something different to Natasha.
Coming from the Red Room, her hands were stained with blood. She believed she was irredeemable.
It was only after Hawkeye recruited her into S.H.I.E.L.D.—an organization seemingly dedicated to maintaining peace—that she found purpose. Even if she was still a spy with blood on her hands, she believed she was doing the right thing. Helping people.
But now... First, the Tesseract research led to an alien invasion. Then the Hydra uprising. Now a Skrull rebellion.
Once might be an accident. Twice might be a mistake. But three times?
Perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't as "good" as she thought.
As the only S.H.I.E.L.D. veteran present, all Natasha could do was hold onto her original intent.
"Alright..." Luca nodded. "Then we do it Natasha's way."