Chapter 234: Furious Warnings
27th September 2012, New York City
(Nick Fury POV)
As Fury was pondering all of this from his office on the Triskelion, Maria Hill entered the room. The woman was one of the main reasons Fury didn’t go crazy in the last few months. She was a rock, efficient and loyal to a fault, and the director of SHIELD appreciated all the effort she made in helping him try to salvage the current situation. For some reason, she had a small smile on her face, “Sir.”
He nodded, “Hill.”
“We have some news.”
Fury nodded and she continued, “the satellites have found Jasmine Sayre in a restaurant in New York.”
The director of SHIELD had a bloodthirsty smile on his face. Well, if an opportunity presented itself, just before the UN vote, he was going to take advantage of it. After all, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
However, Fury knew for sure that his opponent wouldn’t be a regular one. He vividly remembered the fear he felt when he last confronted the woman, trying to pressgang her into the Avengers initiative. When his old friend, Charles Xavier, warned him about her, he hadn’t expected how fearsome and intimidating the young woman was.
If he was honest with himself, Fury had wished that the woman had died during the Asteroid M fiasco. She had just disappeared and with no signs of her in years, he considered her to be dead, probably by Magneto’s hand. It was quite the victory for SHIELD, that fiasco. It had gotten rid of the threat that Magneto posed, the threat that Jasmine posed, and while Fury does regret Xavier’s death, it allowed SHIELD to fill the hole that he left behind and be able to hire more mutants into the organization.
Still, for all his confidence, Fury needed to be very careful in how to proceed. Bagging Sayre was a must right now, especially with the vote being so close. Having her convicted of murdering Pierce and Evanshade to take over the country was bound to be a large PR boost to the sinking ship that SHIELD currently is.
To do that, he needed all hands on deck, he needed the Avengers. Fury had his own team of mutants, but truthfully, they just weren’t as efficient as the saviors of New York. They couldn’t account for the Hulk’s raw power, Stark’s intelligence and firepower, Barton and Romanoff’s strategic prowess, and Captain America’s charisma. Having them fighting alongside SHIELD would be a big win for him.
Fury dismissed Hill from his office and started calling Romanoff. She was the one he was the closest with. The woman was riddled with guilt from her actions as the Black Widow and Fury was the one that provided her the opportunity to clear her ledger.
The phone rang for a few seconds before the Black Widow’s voice answered, “Hello, Romanoff here.”
The director of SHIELD steeled himself and started speaking, “It’s Fury.”
“What is it?” While most people would have been annoyed at her tone, she wasn’t actually trying to be rude. Romanoff was a straight to the point kind of woman. It was one of the main reasons he liked working with her so much.
“The satellite has located a target, one that alluded us for months. She’s our main suspect in Pierce’s death alongside Evanshade’s in an attempt to seize control over the Marvel Media Company.”
The assassin answered with a suspicious tone, “What does Pierce have to do with Marvel?”
Well, that was a bit uncomfortable to answer, “He had a deal with Evanshade to sell him her shares of the company.”
“That would be worth billions, at the very least, money that Pierce shouldn’t have. How was he going to pay for it?”
Fury would have normally lied, if it was any other agent, at the very least, but Romanoff honestly didn’t care about SHIELD’s occasional dirty business, since she was often asked to do it. But what she doesn’t tolerate was him lying to her. If he said that something was classified, she would just accept it and not keep digging. Unfortunately, she’s now outside of SHIELD's jurisdiction, meaning that he can’t just tell her that something is classified. He had to come clean with this, “Pierce was planning on using SHIELD budget to buy the company…”
“And you knew about this?”
It pained him to admit it, but he had to, “No. I wasn’t aware of his ambition to buy the company.”
And the fact that he didn’t know bothered him. He was the director of SHIELD. Decisions like this, especially using this many resources from the organization, should have been made in his presence, if only to be able to manage the budget after the purchase. Pierce doing it under the radar had unsettled the one eyed man deeply.
“So, you’re telling me, that Pierce, the former Secretary of the World Security Council, decided to buy a media company that’s probably worth more than three times SHIELD’s yearly budget, without telling you about it, or anyone in the finance department, for that matter – since you would have received a report if he had – and he was killed because of it and so was Evanshade, the woman who was supposed to sell him the company in the first place.”
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Her tone was incredulous, and he could understand why. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Sayre’s involvement, he wouldn’t have looked twice at the situation, “Yes, but there’s more to it.”
“Fury, honestly, I looked at Pierce’s autopsy. the man died of a heart attack that was due to a blood clot, that was in turn caused by a large concentration of cholesterol in his blood. It was pure chance, and I don’t think anyone, even me, could fake something like that. That’s not even mentioning the fact that the man went behind your back to buy a major asset, especially when he was under review as part of the World Security Council. You can’t say that doesn’t sound fishy. You’re grasping at straws. Even I can tell that much.”
Yes, he knew exactly how this sounded. And normally, he would have tried to look for more evidence, to convince Romanoff even further. And he knew that there was something fishy about the situation with SHIELD, but he had no other options. He needed a big win, and he needed it to be clean and with no issues.
With that said, Fury finally gave her the final nail in the coffin, “Jasmine Sayre is the suspect in question.”
The line went silent at this and a few seconds later, Romanoff responded, “So, let me get this straight. You think that Sayre found out about the deal between Pierce and Evanshade and killed them both to stop the sale from happening and to get control over the company. And now, with Sayre resurfacing, you want to go after her?”
“Yes, that’s an apt summary.”
Romanoff didn’t say a word for a good five seconds before answering, “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND, FURY?”
He didn’t expect a response like that. He knew that Sayre had messed with Romanoff a lot during their last encounter, but he didn’t expect it to distress her this much, “Don’t get emotional on me, Romanoff.”
The woman had calmed herself and answered, “Look, Fury, things are a lot more complicated than you think. Do not go after Jasmine Sayre. It’s suicide. You will lose everything.”
The director of SHIELD gritted his teeth, “And how do you know that?”
“Seriously, Fury, you have no idea what you’re dealing with. We both know that you’re usually not that reckless, and that you don’t attack anyone without proper intelligence. And I know that you don’t have proper intelligence, because if you knew did, you wouldn’t have even considered the situation. Yeah, you’re probably right in the fact that Sayre killed Pierce, but she didn’t kill Evanshade and that’s a fact. Don’t do this, Fury. I’m warning you for old time’s sake.”
The director of SHIELD had to admit that Romanoff’s clear aversion to the idea of going after Sayre unsettled him, "You know something that I don’t?”
“Yes, I do. I shouldn’t even be telling you this. I’m only warning you because of what you’ve done for me over the years. Please, Nick, don’t go after her. I will tell you right now, that not a single Avenger will support any attack on that woman and for good reason. If you have any sliver of trust in me, don’t do it.”
So, there was more to the situation, and the Avengers knew about it. Nevertheless, the woman had killed the Secretary of the World Security Council, and there has to be consequences for doing that. He appreciated Romanoff’s warning her really did, but these were desperate times and desperate times call for desperate measures.
“I’m sorry, Romanoff. The world needs to see SHIELD doing something, fighting a dangerous foe. They need to see that even with the last few scandals, that SHIELD was needed. This is the only way that I can see SHIELD surviving.”
“No, it isn’t. There has to be something else you could do, someone else you could go after,” Romanov pleaded, “There’s Ulysses Klaw who was last seen in South Africa. You could have the gratitude of Wakanda and all the other African countries surrounding it, just for returning the Vibranium he stole. They could feed their people if they sell it to you anyway, and then it would open a lot of doors for research. I could even get Tony to finance you, if you can get him to do some tests on some pure vibranium ores.”
Fury denied the offer, “Klaw went underground. We’ve been tracking him, but he left South Africa a few months back. And even if we did get him, it wouldn’t impact the UN vote this much. We need something bigger and bagging a mutant who took over one of the biggest companies in the world, could be the push we need. Plus, we both know that it’s the public we need to sway not the UN representatives.”
“Fury, I’m begging you here, don’t do this.”
No, the director of SHIELD had already made his mind. This was the only path he saw where SHIELD would still be still standing after the vote, “I’m sorry, Romanoff.”
He hung up on the assassin. This didn’t bode well for Fury. The Avengers being so opposed to fighting this woman put a wrench in his plans. For now, he needed to adjust things slightly. He didn’t know if he could beat Sayre. His team of mutants, while strong, probably wouldn’t be enough to fight her, considering the confidence she showed in front of him and Charles when they confronted her.
But he didn’t need to actually defeat her, did he. He only needed to show that she was a threat, get her to use her powers and show the world that the woman in charge of the Marvel Media company was a mutant. The public opinion was generally against mutants in general, and she could be found guilty of the murders in the eyes of the public. This would show the world that SHIELD was still fighting the good fight and removing dangerous threats even after the fiasco that was the New York invasion.
Ok, that would be an adequate plan. As for now, he needed to assemble a small task force of SHIELD’s mutants to get them to do the mission at hand. They needed to be either extremely tough, or long range fighters. It was a good way of minimizing the risk to his own agents while revealing Sayre’s nature to the world.
Still, he was wary of Natasha’s warning. She seemed desperate to stop him from doing this. Maybe she had a point, maybe going after Sayre was suicide. But Fury was a fighter, he didn’t become the director of SHIELD without fighting his way up, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to give up on his organization without a fight.
With that small bit of hesitation gone, Fury sent a message to his second in command, “Hill, assemble task force X, we’re going after Sayre.”
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