The group pondered Natasha's words. It really was an absurd premise.
Why build the Avengers Initiative? To possess the power of vengeance. To send a message to the rest of the universe that Earth was not to be messed with.
But was Earth really a threat?
Sure, the Hulk was an unstoppable force of nature, and Tony Stark's combat capabilities would continuously scale as he upgraded his armor. But what about Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton?
What exactly did they bring to the table in a galactic war?
If it came down to a physical brawl, could they even defeat a standard Asgardian foot soldier?
Through grueling, hellish training and a steady supply of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s classified enhancement serums, the two of them had reached the absolute peak of human physical potential. While they couldn't match a genetic freak like Captain America—someone who explicitly shattered biological limits—they were practically untouchable among ordinary humans.
A single one of them could effortlessly decimate twenty heavily armed mercenaries. They were lethal anomalies. If they found themselves face-to-face with a Siberian tiger in the wild, they could genuinely consider killing it with a combat knife.
But compared to an Asgardian?
Setting aside god-tier anomalies like Thor or Loki, even an average Asgardian soldier was the product of thousands of years of magical, generational evolution. Their baseline physiology was lightyears beyond human limits.
It was a conservative estimate to say every single Asgardian grunt possessed the baseline strength of Captain America. And that wasn't an exaggeration.
If the Asgardians, Frost Giants, Fire Giants, or Dark Elves ever decided to invade Earth, how exactly were Barton and Romanoff supposed to fight them?
They'd be throwing their lives away!
It wasn't until Natasha had gone undercover to interview those Hollywood screenwriters that this glaring logic hole finally snapped into focus.
Yes, the two of them could handle almost any domestic crisis on Earth. But the foundational purpose of the Avengers Initiative wasn't to fight terrorists—it was to fight extraterrestrial threats.
Sending a team of people completely unequipped to handle an alien invasion to fight an alien invasion was the definition of an absurd plot hole.
If a single, ordinary Asgardian soldier could snap their necks, what were they supposed to do when an enemy general or a commander showed up?
Even if the Asgardian grunts had been heavily nerfed by the Writers to fit the "Phase One" power scaling, their speed, strength, and durability were still leagues above a peak human.
Nick Fury massaged his temples. Yeah. Why did I even form the Avengers?
In human society, they were superheroes. But in a galactic empire, they were just regular people.
Fury extrapolated the timeline. If Earth's scientific development continued on its current trajectory, genetic engineering would eventually advance to the point where replicating the Super Soldier Serum became trivial. Captain America was just a product of science, after all.
Even if they couldn't successfully replicate it now, it was an inevitability. Whether it took fifty, a hundred, or two hundred years, it would happen. Eventually, every human could have Cap's strength.
So, what was the point of bringing five or six random people together to take revenge on a highly evolved alien species?
It was utterly delusional.
"So you're saying everything I've done... it's all completely meaningless?" Fury asked, his voice rough with an emotion he rarely showed: defeat.
"Of course not," Natasha shook her head, her gaze firm. "Everything you've done is incredibly meaningful. If we lived in a normal, realistic universe without all this fictional nonsense, the Avengers would be useless. Even if every single human on Earth had the Hulk's strength, it wouldn't matter. We couldn't punch an orbital bombardment out of the sky. The aliens would glass the planet in an hour."
"But your plan isn't meaningless," she continued, "because we aren't in a normal universe. Do you understand? I am actually deeply thankful that we are living inside a franchise. Because of that fact, our desperate struggles actually have weight. A handful of individuals can genuinely change the course of an entire cosmic war. Just look at Tony Stark."
"What about him?" Barton asked, leaning forward.
"Aside from being slightly smarter, significantly richer, and infinitely more annoying than the rest of us, he's just a normal guy," Natasha quipped. "But because he is a pre-destined Main Character, he can play a decisive, absolute role in a battle against an alien armada whose technology makes ours look like sticks and stones. Can you even comprehend that?"
Natasha gestured animatedly. "In a realistic interstellar war, a localized battle-suit like Iron Man would be swatted out of the sky the second it left the hangar. He'd be vaporized like a single bee flying into a hurricane. But here? He survives. He becomes the hero. Because that is the power of being the 'Chosen One.' That is the power of a Main Character!"
Honestly, Natasha was jealous. Actually, every single person in S.H.I.E.L.D. was fiercely jealous.
Over the past few months of reading the diary, a bitter truth had become glaringly obvious: none of them were Main Characters.
Not a single agent in S.H.I.E.L.D. was the protagonist. At best, they were important supporting characters.
Take Natasha, for example. The diary had already revealed that she was destined to die in the future. And based on Lucas's tone, it wasn't even a glorious, world-saving sacrifice at the absolute climax. She didn't have the "Plot Armor" required to survive to the end.
So, who were the confirmed Main Characters?
The first was the man they were currently tearing the ice apart to find: Captain America, Steve Rogers.
The second, and undeniably the most prominent, was the absolute center of the universe: Iron Man, Tony Stark.
In fact, it was safe to say that if there was a "Main Character among Main Characters," it was Tony.
It was obvious in the way Lucas wrote about him. Whenever Lucas met Tony in person, he acted incredibly aloof and constantly extorted him for cash. But in the private pages of his diary, Lucas's attitude toward Tony was completely different. Tony received a level of narrative respect and focus that no one else did.
Reading between the lines, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had deduced a critical piece of meta-knowledge: in the real world outside the Fourth Wall, Tony Stark was unequivocally the most popular character in the franchise. The audience worshipped Iron Man.
As for the rest of them? They could gauge their own "popularity rankings" based on how often Lucas mentioned them.
Natasha Romanoff was clearly a highly popular character. She wasn't the female lead of her own story, but she had a massive fanbase.
Privately, Nick Fury and the other agents often joked about this fact. They concluded that the universe outside the Fourth Wall must be filled with incredibly thirsty men. Otherwise, Natasha wouldn't be nearly as popular.
Nick Fury figured his own popularity was decent enough. As the mastermind behind the team, he got some screen time.
But Clint Barton? His popularity was practically rock-bottom. He was incredibly forgettable. Lucas almost never mentioned him in the diary unless he had to.
Aside from that, the only other characters Lucas paid significant attention to were the various attractive female characters across the timeline.
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