S.H.I.E.L.D. Is a Mad Dog (Second Guaranteed Update, Please Subscribe!!!)

Lake gave a dismissive snort.

Tony frowned.

"You don’t believe me?"

"No, I do."

Tony looked at Lake, whose face was full of disbelief, and said solemnly, "I’m telling the truth."

He was no match at all for the Black Heart Demon occupying Obadiah’s body.

At the beginning, Tony had actually held the upper hand. But no matter what weapon he used against Obadiah, whose body was shrouded in black mist, all he heard was the Black Heart Demon’s screams. The demon simply refused to fall.

In the end.

Tony had thought the Black Heart Demon was a masochist. But by the second half of the fight, neither the shoulder missiles nor the palm cannons could even make him scream anymore.

Then the tide of the battle shifted.

In just one exchange, the Black Heart Demon appeared in front of Tony in the sky from the ground below. With a boom, one knee strike sent Tony flying, and in the next instant, he smashed Tony back down from the sky to the ground.

The damage to Tony’s armor had all been caused in that single exchange.

Fortunately.

Before setting out this time, Tony had apparently sensed that he might encounter a demon and had saved several small missiles filled with holy water. Just as the Black Heart Demon occupying Obadiah’s body tore open Tony’s faceplate and prepared to crush him to death, the holy-water missiles mounted on Tony’s shoulders fired.

A scream that seemed to come from Hell sent the Black Heart Demon crashing back into the warehouse. By sheer coincidence, he struck the explosives stored inside, triggering a tremendous blast.

Seeing more and more people gathering, and realizing that he was injured as well, Tony quickly withdrew.

And that brought them to the present.

Lake looked at Tony, whose face was full of worry, and smiled. "I’m telling the truth, too."

Tony looked at Lake with a deeply furrowed brow.

Lake smiled. "Don’t worry. Hell Gate won’t open. Even if the sky falls, it won’t be our turn to hold it up."

Tony was confused.

Lake thought for a moment, then looked at Tony. "You know that this world has a mysterious organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. now, right?"

Tony nodded.

It was a variant of the Scientific Strategic Reserve, founded by Howard Stark and Ms. Peggy Carter.

"Can S.H.I.E.L.D. deal with it?"

"Ha."

"…I don’t like riddles."

"Sorry."

Suppressing his laughter, Lake said to Tony, "If S.H.I.E.L.D. can be relied on, even a sow could climb a tree. Do you really think world peace is maintained by S.H.I.E.L.D.? They’re good at bragging, but how many useful things have they actually done? They’re incapable of accomplishing anything and excel at ruining things. What I mean is, someone will deal with the demons. You can’t expect ordinary people like us to go toe-to-toe with demons, right?"

S.H.I.E.L.D. could deal with demons?

Lake almost laughed.

When it came to accomplishing nothing and ruining everything, if S.H.I.E.L.D. claimed second place, no one would dare claim first.

Didn’t believe him?

Just look at their record.

In the beginning, S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried to recruit Lake by socially destroying him. In the end, Lake had verbally beaten them back.

Then there was the Winter Soldier incident. Those idiots only cared that the Winter Soldier was a hero, completely ignoring what he had done and insisting on protecting a murderer.

Third was that so-called assassin academy. They claimed to protect the world, but all they did was take in orphans from various places and train them into so-called numbered agents?

What the hell.

Then came the cloning incident. Daniel Whitehall had turned himself and Bucky Barnes into mass-produced assembly-line products. Daniel Whitehall had even turned a small island nation into his personal territory. Where had S.H.I.E.L.D. been?

In a word.

Relying on S.H.I.E.L.D. was genuinely worse than hoping Hydra developed a conscience. Hydra handled things more reliably than they did. At the very least, whatever else could be said about Hydra, they were quite good at keeping themselves hidden.

Tony nodded as if he understood, then looked at Lake, who was speaking so seriously about being an ordinary person, and frowned. "You? An ordinary person?"

Lake shrugged. "If not, what am I? Not a person?"

I’ll be a god in the future.

But not now. At most, I’m just a person with an Immortal Body. Even so, I’m still human. At most, I can be considered a male god.

The corner of Tony’s mouth twitched. "When I was on my way here, Jarvis detected multiple internal hemorrhages and a fracture in my right arm. My mortality risk was as high as sixty percent. But I passed out for a while, and now I’m completely healed."

"You should change your AI system," Lake said. "It’s too unreliable."

After saying that.

Lake looked at the information being transmitted to the tablet in front of him. He raised his head and looked at Tony. "If I were you, I wouldn’t be worried about the demon. I’d be worried about something else."

"What?"

Lake held up his tablet for Tony to see. The large photograph showed Tony above and the demon below, with the holy-water missile from Tony’s shoulder blasting toward the demon. The image was exceptionally clear.

Right.

It was the version without a faceplate.

Lake glanced at the time on his wristwatch and smiled. "If I’m not mistaken, it won’t be long before an agent claiming to represent S.H.I.E.L.D. finds you. Then they’ll tell you that, for the sake of global safety and stability, the wisest choice would be to deny that you’re the person in the photograph."

Tony said, "That sounds reasonable."

Any official organization in the world would first consider maintaining stability. That was perfectly normal. After all, stability meant everything remained under control, just like during the previous Clone Crisis.

Thinking of his own experience, Lake said to Tony, "I think I forgot to tell you. This so-called S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to recruit me, too."

Tony looked at Lake. "When?"

"Do you remember the time my name and photograph first appeared in all the major newspapers in New York and stole your spotlight? I was at the NYPD then."

"I know."

Tony hadn’t known before, but after becoming more familiar with Lake, he had specifically looked into Lake’s past. That was how he had found out.

Lake nodded. "That was the time. White plus Black was arranged by S.H.I.E.L.D. They tried to socially destroy me so I would submit to them and eventually join them."

Tony found that rather amusing. "They didn’t know your background?"

Lake’s military and financial connections were enough to let him walk sideways. After all, Lake had been formally adopted by Karen and Ross and was the nominal heir to the Ross family.

Lake shook his head, then looked at Tony. "But I have a feeling they’ll change their approach this time."

Tony said, "You mean they’ll try to recruit me, too?"

Lake nodded. "You have the right bloodline, Tony. Howard Stark and Peggy Carter founded S.H.I.E.L.D.’s predecessor, the Scientific Strategic Reserve. Want my advice?"

"Of course!"

"Principles and boundaries."

"What?"

Lake’s tone was calm. "Principles and boundaries. Hold firmly to your principles and stick to your boundaries. Because the moment you violate them, these people will act like mad dogs and try once again to push your boundaries back, step by step."

Perhaps that was why Tony Stark had refused S.H.I.E.L.D.’s advice in the original story.

It was very simple.

If superheroes who had not achieved freedom in their lives chose to conceal their identities for various reasons, Tony was different. As a beneficiary of the Federation’s capitalist society, did he need to hide his identity as a superhero?

There was no reason for it at all.

S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted Tony Stark to conceal his identity for a very simple reason: they wanted to test him. Once Tony accepted their suggestion, what about the second request? And the third?

Principles were called principles because they could not be shaken.

The same applied to boundaries.

That was why Lake had ruthlessly sent Maureen to her death back then. If he had learned the truth yet spared Maureen’s life, then just watch—if Maureen didn’t die, she would definitely find all sorts of excuses to appear before him, like a demon of the heart, disrupting his mind and leading him step by step into the abyss.

Once one’s principles and boundaries were breached, it was like cutting open one’s own chest and exposing one’s heart without the slightest cover. By then, everything would be over.

After hearing this, Tony chuckled. "I said concealing one’s identity was normal, but I never said I would choose to hide mine. Why should I?"

Why hide it?

He had built the Iron Man Suit and flown straight to Afghanistan in broad daylight without concealing himself. If he had wanted to hide it, he would have done so from the start.

Tony thought about everything he had seen and experienced during those seven days in the cave. He also thought about seeing the news on television after returning, showing his weapons being used by a terrorist organization to massacre civilians. Only Tony knew the depth of his anger. He had built weapons to protect the Federation, not to let a group of terrorists misuse them however they pleased.

So what if he was exposed?

Tony had never cared whether his identity would be exposed. Once it was, his deterrent effect against those villains would only become stronger.

Besides…

The chairman of Stark Industries was a superhero. Once that news came out, the plummeting stock price of Stark Industries would probably return to its peak.

Seeing that Tony had made up his own mind, Lake smiled. "As long as you know what you’re doing."

As they spoke.

Lake’s phone rang.

It was Rachel.

"Lake, I’ll be arriving in New York on a morning flight tomorrow. Can you pick me up?"

"Of course."

Lake answered without hesitation, then asked, "What happened? Did Helen catch a cold or something?"

Rachel, wearing pajamas and freshly woken by the breaking news, rolled her eyes. "Our daughter is perfectly fine. By the way, it’s this late and you still haven’t gone to sleep? Didn’t you know?"

Lake frowned. "Know what?"

Rachel lowered her voice. "Hancock Fort! Good heavens, the photographs have already reached Washington. Our newspaper wants me to get the first-hand story."

Lake raised an eyebrow and looked toward Tony.

Tony had also heard Rachel’s voice over the phone. His tail was already wagging as he sat on the sofa, preparing to cross his legs.

With a smack.

"What happened?"

"Some idiot broke the sofa at home."

Lake told Rachel that with a straight face. Then, after hanging up, he looked expressionlessly at Tony, who had broken the sofa by sitting on it. "Three thousand dollars. Either pay for it, or agree to an interview. Your choice."

Sitting sprawled on the shattered sofa in his Iron Man Suit, Tony looked somewhat bewildered. "…"

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