The Death Knell

"what do I need to do?"

Amanda bit the corner of her mouth, and she suppressed the urge to sign immediately. She was already twenty years old, and knew that when getting something, she would also pay a corresponding price.

Valentina nodded approvingly, finished her burger quickly, picked up the hot dog, and replied with a smile: "I need you to join us."

"Be an agent?"

Amanda looked around worriedly, as if she was afraid of being heard.

But the fast food restaurant was far from quiet. The loud music and the weird laughter of a group of hippies in the corner covered up their conversation.

"Don't you want to avenge your father? If you want to deal with Hydra, then you can't do it alone." Valentina Sven ate the fast food elegantly. This may be one of her agent skills: " You are just a special field worker. Your identity is usually that of a rock star, and your tasks are book signings, tours, TV appearances, etc. You only need to help us occasionally deliver news, or provide some cover for certain personnel, and you can change Come do it all.”

Amanda looked up at her, then down at the file: "Why me?"

"We know everything about you, and everything you do meets the standards of a patriot. In this world where group power is decentralized, violence is rampant, and good and evil are reversed, we need a person like your father to work with us to change the world. , and after he passes away, you will be this person."

Valentina put away her smile and whispered very seriously. Her face was filled with the light of justice at this time, and her figure seemed to become as majestic as Captain America.

Amanda rubbed her face hard, especially around her eyes.

"Damn, you must be crazy..."

Her tone softened, she put down her guitar and stared blankly at the contract.

"I don't know if I'm crazy or not, but heavy metal fans are crazy. A rock star can easily enter the borders of any country through formal legal channels." Valentina took out a piece of music from her corset. He put a pen with a body temperature into Amanda's hand: "Also, if I can have some free records to listen to, I hope to listen to your songs."

Amanda turned to look at the lights outside the window, the red and green neon lights, and the street lights that looked dim in comparison. She unscrewed the pen and lowered her head to write on the contract.

Valentina nodded with a smile, stretched out her hand and took out a business card and handed it to Amanda: "The other person's name is George. Make this call during the day tomorrow and he will help you arrange everything. I'll leave first. You can wait here for a few minutes. Leave, we never met.”

After saying that, Valentina stood up and left quickly, as if nothing had happened. A group of people also stood up from the corner of the fast food restaurant, headed by a bearded man wearing a bowler hat.

He pinched the brim of his hat at Amanda, then led the others to follow Valentina, got into the car and left together.

Amanda pursed her lips, sat in her original seat and finished her coffee, obviously thinking about something. Then she also picked up her guitar and contract and left, going out to the other direction of the street.

Su Ming did not move, still sitting and eating and drinking. His face and eyes were covered by the Beetle hairstyle. At this time, he looked like an ordinary young man wearing bell-bottom pants.

Because Hangsha smelled a familiar smell in the store, and there were also acquaintances of the host here.

A few minutes after Amanda left, there was some movement among the hippies in the distance. A black man wearing a leather jacket and jeans took out a large bag of tree leaves from his pocket and dismissed the hippies.

Those young people rushed out of the fast food restaurant holding the plastic bags as if they were treasures. The evening breeze mixed with the strange smell on the street made the temperature in the store drop a little.

The black man looked around cautiously, and quickly changed tables with a red-haired young woman, sitting in the previous seat of Amanda and Valentina.

Su Ming heard Natasha's voice clearly. He spread a tentacle against the wall and saw that she was using cotton swabs to take samples from paper cups and the table. Sitting opposite her was Nick Fury, who had no expression at all.

"Tonight's action is to stalk your wife?" Natasha moved her hands slowly, but complained about Fury's behavior: "Using state power for personal affairs, is this a waste of sponsors' money? Okay, that The girl named Amanda is pretty, but that doesn't mean Valentina cheated on her and turned into..."

Natasha turned her little hand over and made a gesture of climbing over the wall, which meant climbing into the forbidden lily garden.

Fury looked at Natasha's work with the eyes of a dead fish. Her words did not cause any fluctuations in him: "It's not a private matter. I suspect she is Hydra."

"Who? Amanda?" Natasha smiled and cut off the cotton swab and kept it in a test tube: "She is too young. If it is really Hydra, then her performance is not good enough. She should refuse a few times first and then 'encounter' It's just something, I just have to join."

Fury looked out the window. The high-necked T-shirt always made him feel itchy on his neck. He said in an unchanging tone: "Are you talking about yourself?"

Natasha didn't take it seriously either. She used transparent tape to separate the fingerprints on the table and answered easily: "If I were still Leviathan or a lurking Hydra, I would have killed you all when there were so many opportunities in the past. If I don’t take action, my superiors will definitely kill me first.”

Fury gave her a brief fake smile, as if the joke was funny. He reached out and touched his gauze-covered left eye: "I'm talking about my wife, Logistics Service Agent Valentina. I Suspect she is Hydra.”

Natasha gave a sympathetic look and looked through Amanda's leftovers to take photos so that she could compare her teeth marks when she got back to determine if she had been tricked.

"Is your relationship so bad now? The United States is not a furry bear, and your marriage is not a political task. You can divorce. You know that if I put the hat of Hydra on her, I will have to kill her, right?"

Natasha is now a field agent, but her mission is rather special. In addition to the tasks required in the general field, she is also responsible for cleaning out traitors and spies within the organization.

And this also makes her name as the Black Widow more and more intimidating.

Nick Fury rubbed his temples. He injured an eye during the battle at Xian Cong a few days ago, but as the commander-in-chief of the field team, he had to stay awake at all times, so he didn't even use painkillers.

They clearly had the upper hand in the spy battle that took place in Xian Cong, but the betrayal by the traitor made Fury blind in one eye before he could escape. He has yet to find the person who betrayed him.

The most suspicious thing is his wife.

"My relationship with her is very good, surprisingly good, so I doubted her." Fury felt more than just his eyes, his brain hurt when Natasha spoke, but his tone remained firm: "She is beautiful, right?" Wrong? Even from the perspective of you women."

"That's right." Natasha finished her work, pulled up her collar and covered half of her face: "But this is not a reason to doubt."

"Duggan and I rescued her when we went to England to deal with vampires. She was Dugan's girlfriend first, then got along with me after we broke up, joined the logistics department, and then got married." Fury briefly recounted the past. things.

Natasha curled her lips: "I was listening, but I only heard a motive for the murder. To be honest, if you really want to kill her, you don't need any evidence at all. I will be happy to help you privately and let her die very... Pain, what kind of wine does she usually like?”

Fury leaned back on the bench and looked at Natasha speechlessly.

Black Widow is very skilled, smart and beautiful, and can be said to be the top weapon in the logistics department now, but the dark habits she brought from Leviathan sometimes make her think weirdly.

Asking Valentina what she likes to drink means she is planning to poison her.

"I said, we have a very good relationship, and I have never thought about killing her." Fury stopped Natasha from continuing her random thoughts: "But she has been unable to get pregnant for so many years..."

"Aha, the second motive for murder is that she can't have children. Then you should guess that she is Leviathan. Girls like us who came out of the red house cannot have children." Natasha interrupted very directly, with a very relaxed expression: " I have looked away, even if this is the most regrettable thing for a woman."

Of course, this was a lie to Fury.

She actually didn't defect from Leviathan, she was rescued. But when it comes to acting, you can hide it from the physical examination as long as you use some drugs.

"That's just a digression. It's mainly about the time when she joined the Logistics Department and her subsequent performance. She only joined after Faust was killed by Deathstroke. And she knew me and Dugan much earlier. It's completely true. Opportunities to join earlier.”

Fury took a deep breath and rubbed his curly hair helplessly.

Natasha looked at the ceiling and curled her lips: "Mustache resurrected and attacked the United States. Maybe this touched her... She is British and has no relatives. She was rescued by you and came to the United States. And in that incident, it was discovered that the United States was not completely safe, so it made sense that she decided to participate in agent training to strengthen herself and save herself."

"For more than ten years, her field mission success rate is 100%." ​​Fury said expressionlessly.

"Me too." Natasha took out a throwing knife to trim her nails out of boredom, and looked at the light with her long fingers.

"All her mission targets are dead, and she has not captured any prisoners. Compared to more than 300 missions, this number is not proportional." Fury's face was already dark, but he looked even more serious at this time.

Natasha changed her hand and said nonchalantly: "Me too."

She is neither the Logistics Department, nor Hydra, nor Leviathan. As long as the death knell does not issue an order, she will always be in a deep dive state. What's more, the Logistics Department is also experiencing frequent internal struggles, so she must protect herself wisely.

Peggy Carter wholeheartedly wanted to make the logistics department bigger and stronger, and recruited elite soldiers from all over to join. Externally, it can indeed be said that she is fighting against Leviathan and Hydra, but the internal factional struggle is more serious. .

She missed the old days and hoped that everything would be the same as before. She wanted the Logistics Office to still be a special department of the United States, handling some corresponding special affairs for the country. It would be best to call Steve back and resume the invasion team. A powerful force.

Fury has learned experience from a series of unprepared incidents before. He is now more inclined to anchor the logistics department under the United Nations Security Council, so that he can have first-hand information about what is happening around the world, at least among U.S. allies.

Of course, because discrimination against black people is less severe within the United Nations system, he can have more room for action.

Howard's idea is different from theirs. He hopes to combine more consortium enterprises with the logistics department.

His Stark Industries has the best weapons, Wilson Enterprises has the most comprehensive logistics and logistics system, Osborn Group has the best biopharmaceutical technology, etc. With comprehensive economic and material support, who can What kind of congressional oversight do we still need to accept? How can there be so many politicians dictating things every day?

Fortunately, the relationship between these three people is not bad. After all, they are comrades in World War II. Although they each have their own ideas, at least for now, Peggy has the final say.

However, within the Logistics Department, there are still factions that side with Congress, those that side with the military, and there are even factions that are completely anti-war. There are various conflicts between the newcomers and the old people before the reorganization, and spies from all sides are fishing in troubled waters. It can be said that the logistics department is a mess.

After Faust's death, a large number of people were eliminated when the SSR was rebuilt into the Logistics Office, but more than ten years later, the carrion grew back.

Natasha is not interested in any of this. She just wants to complete the tasks assigned by her boss. So what if Valentina is really Hydra? It has nothing to do with her.

"That's the problem." Fury ignored her perfunctory words and tapped the table with his dark fingers: "You have been receiving professional training in ballet and killing techniques since you were four years old. I don't care at all that all your mission targets have died. Strange. But what about her? As far as I know, she is an orphan from a small aristocracy in the British countryside. She never killed a chicken before she was twenty years old, but after a few years of training, she can kill without batting an eye? This is wrong. "

Natasha inserted the small flying knife back into the widow's sting, stood up and patted Fury's hand comfortingly: "That only means that there are some good instructors at the Secret Service Academy of the Logistics Department... The evidence collection is complete, we Should I follow you now or what?"

Fury rolled his eyes, but stood up anyway. He really didn't find any evidence, not even at home. He even tried to tell Valentina while she was sleeping, concluding that she was extremely loyal.

But he just didn't feel right, pure feeling.

"Good instructor? Damn it, those people who haven't even fought in World War II can't compare to my black ass." Fury didn't want to say anything more. He zipped up his clothes and said, "Let's go back Headquarters, my left eye and one side of my brain are hurting terribly, I have to ask Hank to take a look at it for me."

Natasha opened the door for him and said helplessly: "You know Dr. Pym is a physicist and biologist, right? He is not a doctor. I will remove your eyeball and replace it with a prosthetic eye tomorrow when I am on vacation. What color eye patch would you like?”

Fury: "..."

He walked silently into the night, as if he had become invisible for an instant.