Chapter 156: HYDRA's Mr. Fantastic?
Pierce's mood right now was like a spring morning — warm, bright, and full of promise.
He sat in his spacious office, the view beyond the window lost to darkness, yet somehow everything still felt perfectly right with the world.
He couldn't help but look back on his clashes with Ethan Cross, and a strange, almost guilty gratitude welled up inside him.
Ever since Ethan had entered his orbit, Pierce felt as though his life had crested a turning point.
Step by step, he'd climbed toward the summit — career, power, influence — all of it falling neatly into his hands.
He knew, with complete clarity, that none of it would have been possible without Ethan.
Back in the day, Nick Fury had been the stone in Pierce's shoe. He'd watched that man constantly, terrified Fury would find a crack in his plans and drive a wedge through them.
But then Fury had made the mistake of pouring every last ounce of his attention into destroying Ethan — and Pierce had found, to his delight, that the road ahead had never been smoother.
Without Fury running interference, S.H.I.E.L.D. had drifted into his hands like a gift.
Now the agency was his — completely, unconditionally his. He could wield it however he liked, bend it toward whatever ambitions he held.
And he owed it all to Ethan.
I'm starting to regret the idea of killing him, Pierce thought, almost amused by the realization.
His second debt of gratitude went to the Winter Soldier — Bucky Barnes. One HYDRA assassin, barely a pawn on the board, had been enough to set the Avengers and Hell's Kitchen tearing at each other's throats. Bucky's contribution to HYDRA's revival was, frankly, immeasurable. Pierce felt almost inclined to burn a stick of incense in his honor.
Though I suppose he doesn't have a grave, Pierce reflected. Tony carted the body off somewhere. Not that it matters.
Bucky was dead. Irrelevant.
Still — Ethan's threat couldn't simply be ignored. Pierce turned the problem over in his mind, searching for the angle, when the man sitting across from him seemed to read his thoughts.
Reed Richards smiled — the quiet, self-assured smile of a man who always had a move in reserve.
"Director Pierce," he said, voice low and unhurried, "are you still turning over the problem of Ethan Cross?"
Pierce looked up and met those deep, calculating eyes. He knew this man carried plans that hadn't yet seen daylight. He waited, letting the silence do the work.
Reed didn't rush to fill it. He continued at his own pace. "Don't worry. I've already thought it through. Leave the rest to me, Director — I can make both Nick Fury and Ethan Cross disappear from your board."
Pierce's brow tightened slightly. He didn't enjoy other people making unilateral decisions without his blessing.
But Reed Richards was too valuable an asset to alienate. Whatever displeasure Pierce felt, he kept it off his face.
Honeymoon period, he reminded himself. Play nice for now.
He'd been about to press Reed on the details of his plan when the office door swung open without warning.
Crossbones stepped in.
His eyes swept the room and registered a beat of surprise — Pierce behind the desk, and Reed Richards sitting at his side like he belonged there. Crossbones' brow drew together almost involuntarily.
He'd bled for Pierce. Bled, fought, delivered results. He'd always assumed he was Pierce's most trusted man, the one in the inner circle.
But here was Pierce, huddled in private conversation with someone Crossbones had barely heard of. It was a quiet challenge he hadn't been prepared for.
So I'm not the favorite anymore.
A complicated knot of feelings settled in his chest — something between injury and defiance. He felt, suddenly, invisible. And that feeling sat wrong.
He turned to leave, prepared to give them their privacy.
"Stop." Pierce's voice came from behind him, clipped and flat. "What is it?"
A flicker of annoyance ran beneath the words. Pierce was in the middle of something important, and he didn't want the interruption — but Crossbones had been his attack dog for years. His business still mattered.
Crossbones stopped. Turned back.
He hesitated for a half-second, then spoke. "Director. I have a report."
There was a tightness in his voice he couldn't entirely hide. He hadn't wanted to be the one to walk in on this — but the news he was carrying was too significant to sit on.
"Spit it out." Pierce's tone carried the particular edge of someone whose patience was being tried. "Can't you see I'm talking to Mr. Fantastic?"
Crossbones heard it. Mr. Fantastic. Priority one, apparently, in this office now. The sting sharpened.
He'd come here with something that should've meant recognition. Now he wasn't sure he wanted to say it at all.
But he said it anyway.
"Director. I've found Nick Fury's location."
The words landed like a stone dropped in still water.
Pierce went completely still — then the stillness broke open into something almost euphoric. He'd been hunting that thread for long enough. The name Fury had lived in his head like a splinter he couldn't reach.
Now, finally. Now.
"Take me there." The urgency in his voice was naked. Now. Immediately.
Reed Richards was on his feet before Pierce had finished speaking. He too, it seemed, wanted a look at the legendary Nick Fury.
Pierce moved for the door, Reed falling in at his side. As he watched the man lead the way down the corridor, Pierce's thoughts ran cool and analytical behind his composed expression.
He doesn't know his place yet. Pierce watched Reed's confident stride. A man that sure of himself doesn't stay number two for long. I'll need to prepare for the moment he stops being useful and starts being a liability.
He said nothing. Filed it away. And followed.
Meanwhile.
In a sealed room buried somewhere inside a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, Nick Fury sat alone with a monitor, and watched his world come apart.
On screen: the Skrull — his friend of years — meeting a violent end. Coulson, who had never once wavered in his loyalty, gone the same way. And Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, dead on the field.
His plan hadn't just failed. It had been dismantled, piece by piece, until nothing remained.
Fury was a hard man — had been trained to be, had trained himself to be harder still. But this was a different kind of loss. These weren't assets on a board. These were people he'd trusted.
The grief was real. He let himself feel it for exactly as long as he could afford to — which wasn't long.
I can't fall apart. Not now.
His eyes steadied. Somewhere beneath the grief, the old machinery was already turning.
He had names. He had evidence. He'd found the mole inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and now he was sitting on the wrong side of a wall between himself and everything Pierce had built.
If he stayed, Pierce would close the gap before dawn.
He drew one long breath and forced himself to think clearly.
As long as I'm breathing, I can come back from this. Cross. Pierce. You'll both be waiting for me when I do.
The promise settled in his chest like iron.
But the question — the real question — was whether he could still walk out of here before Pierce arrived.
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