*Chapter 243: The Crisis Has Ended Again*

Originally, the whole incident in Captain America 2 had come to an end.

The biggest difference from the original timeline was that Tony helped S.H.I.E.L.D. save one of the helicarriers.

Unfortunately, the system was luring Atreus into committing a crime!

Hydra is, of course, a villainous organization, but S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t much better! The "Insight Plan" sounds nice, eliminating threats before they even begin, but who decides who gets eliminated? Congress and the White House, of course!

This was why Captain America strongly opposed Nick Fury earlier.

Now the system told Atreus that by destroying a helicarrier, he could get a War carrier of his own. How could Atreus resist?

With a snap of his fingers.

A second later, explosions erupted from the helicarrier that Tony had just regained control over.

“Boom boom boom!”

“What?!” Tony was shocked. Instinctively, Iron Man smashed through the walls to escape.

When he got out, he was horrified to see massive fireballs erupting all over the helicarrier.

At the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Pierce was laughing wildly: “Hahaha! I told you, if Hydra can’t have it, neither can you.”

Black Widow and Nick Fury didn’t look too pleased.

What none of them realized was that although Hydra planted the explosives all over the helicarrier, it wasn’t Hydra that detonated them.

“You bastard!” Black Widow lunged at Pierce, ready to punch him.

While her “little fist punching your chest” might have killed him, she didn’t get the chance.

After subduing Pierce, she and another agent checked to make sure he didn’t have cyanide or any other poison to commit suicide. Unfortunately, a true agent has more than one way to die.

It wasn’t until Pierce’s face turned blue that Black Widow found a hidden poison needle inside his clothing that required a specific activation method.

Helplessness and frustration spread among the S.H.I.E.L.D. team.

Only Nick Fury stood tall: “Ladies and gentlemen, look on the bright side—we at least prevented the destruction of a city.”

This was the truth. Despite the chaos, this high-intensity war had been mostly confined to the skies above S.H.I.E.L.D., barely affecting even the nearby neighborhoods.

Fury’s words reignited hope in everyone’s eyes.

Even if not for the sake of America, at least they had protected their families and friends.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was finished.

Nick Fury chose to fake his death; in fact, he never really “came back to life.”

Regardless of any reasoning, the fact that Pierce, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top boss, was Hydra was an unshakable disgrace for the agency. Even as the second-in-command, Nick couldn’t escape blame.

Negligence, oversight—you name it, and they’d pin it on him.

Even if Nick didn’t go into hiding, the Hydra higher-ups in Congress would have found a way to kill him. It was better for Nick to go underground on his own.

And just like that, S.H.I.E.L.D. was dissolved, at least on the surface.

Agent Hill joined Stark Industries. Captain America and Falcon refused to go to Europe with Nick—they didn’t want to be spies.

The higher-ups in the U.S. government were in complete chaos.

No one knew how to deal with the fact that an over-a-billion-dollar helicarrier was just gone, not to mention there were three of them! Adding in planes, personnel training, and compensation for the thousands of people lost, this disaster had cost over a hundred billion dollars.

And that’s just the direct economic loss, not even counting the downstream supply chain industries.

To maintain a production line is expensive; the U.S. scrapped the F-22 production line just because it was too costly.

Such a catastrophe—no president could bear the blame.

Ironically, the "Insight Plan" wasn’t even approved by President Ellis. It was the mess left by the previous administration and Congress. But with the furious public and local representatives bearing down on them, Congress couldn’t find anyone to pin it on—so they went after the only person still publicly visible: Black Widow.

It was the same old Congressional inquiry routine.

Honestly, everyone knew Black Widow couldn’t be blamed for this. She didn’t have enough influence.

It’s like blaming the janitor at the White House for a president signing a traitorous treaty—no one would accept it.

This inquiry was just for show.

A four-star general sat at the head of the hearing and sternly asked, “Agent, how do you explain the destruction of S.H.I.E.L.D., and what will replace it to protect our nation’s security in the future?”

Under the spotlight, with a room full of Congressmen and high-ranking officials glaring at her, Black Widow sat back, arms crossed and legs folded. Her defiant attitude impressed many secretly.

“I have nothing to say. Alexander Pierce was appointed by your Congress to be the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. You should ask yourselves—or maybe ask Hydra? As for protecting the nation, if you can’t do it, why not ask Superman or Kratos?”

Her biting response almost made a few of the old men choke.

“Watch your words, Agent! Based on your actions, this committee has the right to throw you in prison.”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?” the official stupidly asked.

“Because you need us!” Black Widow stood up elegantly, without looking back as she prepared to leave. “If you really want to arrest me, you know where to find me.”

What does it mean to be fearless?

That’s it right there!

The U.S. leadership was in a terrible state.

The rise of superhumans and the invasion of aliens had hit their most sensitive nerve.

They wanted to go the genetic route, but after Harry Osborn and Lex Luthor’s accidents, the consequences were too severe for them to handle.

They tried the mechanical path, but Hammer’s robots and the crash of the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier devastated them too.

In the end, the only reliable options left were Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries.

Apart from that, the most direct superhuman force they had was the Avengers.

The U.S. leadership was like someone drowning, desperate to grasp onto anything for survival. You could say this incident also laid the seeds for Captain America 3: Civil War.

But what did the U.S. leadership’s panic and collapse have to do with Atreus?

The villain Crossbones from Captain America 2 wasn’t even worth Atreus’s time.

Not that Atreus was shirking his duties; he had sent Starlight and others to save the little ship, they just “didn’t make it in time.”

The world entered another period of relative calm, and Atreus was simply curious: which would come first, Avengers 2 or Justice League 3?

In the meantime, Atreus let his girls roam the world, acting as vigilantes.

(End of Chapter)