Chapter 873: Starry Splendor (XV)

Peter returned to Stark Tower once again. In the hallway, he called Coulson, but Coulson did not answer. He then called Steve, and Steve's sad and weary voice came from the other end:

"Peter, I know you can't believe it. It was precisely because he was afraid of hurting you that Stark didn't want to tell you, but I just saw the body with my own eyes..."

Steve's voice began to tremble. He said, "Perhaps you don't know, but although Nick has a long lifespan, he relies on a special serum. That serum is different from my Super Soldier Serum; it cannot provide one with super strength or recovery abilities. Peter, Nick is not like us. He is not a super soldier; he is just an ordinary person."

"A sniper bullet pierced his chest and shattered his heart. I saw the large hole in his chest and the fragments of his heart..." The sadness in Steve's tone made Peter have to believe what he was saying.

He knew that the Captain would not lie, nor would he intentionally deceive him. Furthermore, when he had dealt with Nick Fury before, his Spider-Sense had told him that the person before him posed no threat.

This meant that while Nick Fury might be the King of Spies, his physical constitution did not exceed that of an ordinary person by much. A single sniper bullet was enough to kill him.

At this moment, Schiller's voice appeared on the phone again. He said, "Peter, don't think too much. Go back to the lab. It will be fine in a few days. When the funeral is held, we will tell you."

"I told you, they wouldn't just let it go! Back then, I warned Nick not to go alone, but he insisted on doing it. You stood on his side back then, and look at this now?!" Stark's voice came from the background, sounding equally angry and sad. He said:

"Steve Rogers, you've lost another comrade-in-arms! Now, who else are you going to blame? This world?"

"I said it long ago, the development of things is not as optimistic as you think. You lot only know how to be foolishly happy every day, while that group... that group of people who plot and scheme, they are ready to take our lives at any time!"

"Alright, Tony, this is not Steve's fault." Schiller's voice rose. Because he was closer to the microphone, Peter heard him very clearly. He heard Schiller say, "We did indeed overlook the fact that they would dare to make a move against Nick..."

"Moreover, there are not many assassins who would dare to make a move in the Congress and still be able to escape smoothly. It must be a veteran, and the person who hired him..." Schiller sighed slightly and said, "Previously, the conflict between S. H. I. E. L. D. and the military was so sharp that if we said it wasn't the military who did it, no one would believe us."

"I will go find them to talk." Steve's voice rose. He said, "I must go find them to talk!"

"This is your reaction to this matter?" Stark's mockery rose again. He said, "Your old comrade-in-arms just died before your eyes, and your reaction is merely to go find them to talk? To go find that bunch of human traitors and negotiate with them?? Is this what you want?!"

"Alright, stop arguing, you two. Let's discuss a solution..."

Peter's hand gripping the phone tightened more and more. Before he could hear the follow-up content, with a "crack" sound, the phone was crushed into fragments by him.

When the fragments fell to the ground, a mechanical arm landed by Peter's feet, picked up the fragments, and threw them into the trash can. Peter turned his head, and Jarvis placed a hand on his shoulder.

The eyes on the mechanical mask lit up, and Peter asked him with a trembling voice, "Jarvis, why on earth did they do this?"

Jarvis shook his head gently. The sound of mechanical parts rubbing together seemed somewhat harsh. Peter closed his eyes and turned his head away. In the dim hallway, he clenched his fists helplessly and said:

"Every time I think everything is moving in a good direction, such an accident occurs. I thought humanity had united as one, I thought we could work hard together. Was I really too naive?"

The tall robot squatted down and looked at Peter with flashing eyes. Through the flashing light, Peter gradually recalled what Nick had said to him when he had kept him at S. H. I. E. L. D. to persuade him once before.

"Peter, you must know that we must seize this opportunity, seize this best period. This may be humanity's only chance to head toward the universe." Nick looked into Peter's eyes and said, "We need more talent. This is not a shameful thing; this is humanity's dream. No matter which universe humans are from, they must all think this way..."

A different kind of light flickered in Nick's eyes. From his tone, Peter heard a sincerity and hope that was completely different from his usual temperament. He said, "Our time is running out, so we need more people to work hard for this, don't we?"

"Director Fury, every research project is done step-by-step. Even if we send ten thousand people to the Mercury base now and lay all the foundations, we still have to wait for the construction components to finish research." Peter pushed up his glasses and explained, "Scientific research cannot be rushed. If one is eager for results, it is very easy to cause trouble, and the losses will be even greater then."

Nick took a deep breath and said, "Peter, I understand you. You are a researcher and will be as rigorous as possible, but perhaps you need to try to understand the current situation..."

"What's wrong with the current situation? Isn't it quite good?" Peter shrugged his shoulders and said, "Everything is proceeding in an orderly fashion, whether it is the research and development of aerospace technology in various countries or the various technical studies of the Mercury base. A few days ago, I just heard Dr. Dora say that another project had concluded and achieved quite good results."

Peter looked at Nick and said, "Director, you might be a little anxious. In fact, if we just develop steadily like this, sooner or later, humanity will be able to step into the universe and roam between the stars and the sea."

Nick, however, walked back behind his desk and sat down. He said, "Peter, as a child of the new era, perhaps you don't know that this is not the first time humanity has been infinitely close to this great goal."

"In that era you don't understand, we did even more than we do now. In that era when basic science was advancing by leaps and bounds, all of humanity held the dream that we were about to leave the shackles of gravity and roam the universe freely."

"Perhaps you have seen many rusty rockets and space model toys in the museums of that era. That was not an exception."

"I was born into an ordinary farmer's family in Alabama. The only toy I owned was a small rocket that could be launched."

"The principle was very simple. There was a spring at the bottom. As long as you pressed it, it could fly up a little. It didn't fly very high, and the quality wasn't good either. After flying a few times, the paint was all gone."

Nick Fury picked up the pen in his hand, made a rocket launch motion, and then let the pen drop onto the table. He said, "Just like this, very childish, right? But in that era, this was already a very remarkable toy, and it was also my favorite toy."

"Later, I joined the army. During World War II, I lost an eye because I was hit by shrapnel from a grenade, and at the same time, I was injected with a serum and gained a long lifespan."

"During the Cold War, I served in the Central Intelligence Agency, and at that time, my main opponent was the Soviet Union."

Nick leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling with his only remaining eye. He said, "Perhaps you find it hard to imagine, but although they were my opponents, everyone in my group and department believed that half of humanity's future rested on them, and that bunch of people from the KGB thought the same of us."

"We all wanted to prove that we were stronger than the other side, but at the same time, we acknowledged that the other side was very strong. You might not believe it, but much of the intelligence we collected was used to praise the Soviet Union. Incredible, right? Today, all you can see is smearing, but in fact, it wasn't like that at the time..."

"When their rocket launch was successful, we expressed admiration and acknowledged that they had achieved leading progress. Subsequently, we would find our aerospace department, and they would swear that we were not weak either."

"Just like that, today you launch a rocket, tomorrow I test equipment. In that peak period of technological development, we used a method that modern people find hard to imagine to force some equipment that looks incomparably crude now into the sky, and then cheered and felt proud for it."

"That was the closest humanity had been to the stars in tens of thousands of years."

Peter looked at Nick, somewhat stunned. He had never thought that this S. H. I. E. L. D. Director, who always used all sorts of glib talk to persuade him to go to other universes to trick people into labor, had such a side.

He felt that at this moment, Nick and Steve were very similar. People of their era always possessed a kind of astonishing vitality, and unlike this era that had already been blown by decadence and punk style, in that era, they always possessed a kind of inexplicable belief.

But Peter actually knew that the technology of that time could not be compared with the current Solar System Development Plan at all. Now, they could easily send equipment to Mercury and assemble them. No matter which era, humanity had never achieved such great accomplishments.

Standing in the hallway, Peter admitted that at that time, he had been somewhat contemptuous of this idea of Nick's.

He felt that the era would only get better and better, and would not regress. From a factual standpoint, technology had indeed progressed, and humanity had been moving forward steadily. Why bother being obsessed with missing the past?

But now, Peter understood what Nick was missing. The point of his words was not about how much scrap metal humanity had thrown into the sky in that era.

It was that Nick Fury, as a native-born American, an American soldier who had received American education since childhood, and an excellent agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, was actually still missing the era when the Soviet Union still existed after so many years.

This was almost incredible. That was not the control and brainwashing of a small country by a great power, but the collision of two great powers. But what he received was not hatred education based on nationality and country; what he saw was humanity's stars shining brightly.

Peter suddenly understood what he was anxious about. At this moment, he realized that he should not look down on the wisdom of an immortal. The longer one lives, the more thoroughly one sees through human nature.

And he had always been harboring fantasies about certain things. Peter recalled, had he really not realized the essence of human nature? Perhaps that was not the case; he had just been using the fact of technological development to escape certain things.

And now, that gunshot in Congress was telling him that escape was useless, and not to harbor groundless fantasies. Otherwise, no matter how solid the armor or how strong the chest, it could not withstand a bullet shot from the shadows that shattered the heart.

Putting on his suit and adjusting his mask, standing before the window, Spider-Man stopped and turned his head to look at Jarvis. Jarvis waved at him, as if saying goodbye.

Spider-Man leaped out and swung through the cold wind over New York. Standing on the roof of Stark Tower, he let out a silent roar.

Dark clouds obscured the sky, the moonlight was no longer bright, and at this moment in New York, black clouds pressed down on the city. ===== CHAPTER 874 =====