Inside Obadiah’s office, the air was as taut as a violin string on the verge of snapping.
Following Coulson’s instructions through her earpiece, Pepper Potts inserted a miniature USB drive into the computer tower, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.
“Downloading…
It’s a massive amount of data.
Stay alert.”
On the screen, a blue progress bar crept steadily forward.
With every tick of progress, Pepper’s breathing grew shallower.
Natasha stood behind her, leaning casually against the wall, but her hawk-like gaze scanned the corridor outside, monitoring the slightest movement.
The progress bar reached seventy-three percent.
Then, without any warning, it froze.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
Time seemed to stretch thin.
Cold sweat beaded on Pepper’s forehead.
She held her breath instinctively, almost able to hear the rush of her own blood.
Just as her heart was about to leap from her throat, the progress bar suddenly surged forward, rushing to the finish line at breakneck speed.
[Download Complete]
Pepper yanked the USB drive out and clutched it tightly in her palm, its warm metal casing grounding her back to reality.
“I got it,” she whispered into the empty air, letting out a long breath.
“Excellent work, Miss Potts,” Coulson’s voice came through.
“Evacuate immediately.
Our people are waiting downstairs to back you up.”
Beside her, Natasha said nothing, but a flicker of suspicion crossed her sharp green eyes.
That pause of nearly three minutes was definitely not a normal network fluctuation.
It felt more like…
the data stream had been intercepted at some node by an external force, inspected, and then allowed to pass.
The instinct of a top-tier agent flared in her mind, and she committed this bizarre detail to memory.
The two women quickly stepped out of the office and took the elevator straight down to the lobby.
Once they stepped out of the building and handed over the evidence, Tony would be saved.
But the moment the elevator doors slid open, casting bright light onto their faces.
A figure stumbled through the revolving doors of the building, leaning heavily against the frame, gasping for breath.
It was an Asian youth.
His face was as pale as paper, and thick beads of sweat covered his forehead as if he had just been pulled from a lake.
His body trembled slightly, seemingly enduring immense pain.
It was Leon Hall, currently suffering from the profound exhaustion of spiritual overload.
Yet, his eyes shone with an astonishing brilliance, like stars burning in the dark of night, locking instantly onto Pepper Potts.
Leon’s voice was hoarse and urgent, as though he were expending the absolute last of his strength.
Natasha’s body tensed instantly.
She stepped forward to shield Pepper, falling into a defensive stance.
It was her other target for this operation—the mysterious, elusive “Diviner” who had been impossible to track or contact.
He had actually delivered himself to her doorstep!
Leon did not even look at her.
His gaze pierced past her shoulder, staring intently at Pepper as he spoke, enunciating every word:
“You are the key to saving Tony.”
Pepper froze, entirely disarmed by the absolute, undeniable resolve in his eyes.
Leon gave her no time to think, uttering the words he had glimpsed above the gray fog:
“When steel tears at the sky, when the light of the heart is extinguished,”
“The wrath of the sky shall be purified,”
“And a mortal’s resolve shall strike the final hammer blow.”
“Listen, the final key is in your hands.”
“It is the choice of [The Lovers].”
Back at SHIELD’s Triskelion Headquarters, Nick Fury’s single eye narrowed to a slit as he stared intently at the exhausted figure on the surveillance feed.
“What is he talking about?
What hammer?
What key?
Boost the audio!
Get all our linguists and cryptographers online immediately and analyze every single word of this!”
In the lobby, Pepper was completely bewildered by these cryptic, disjointed words.
She instinctively glanced down at the USB drive clutched in her hand.
The key…
did he mean this?
Her mind was a chaotic mess.
She looked to Natasha in front of her for guidance, then back to Leon, who looked as though he might collapse at any moment.
She recalled the complex expression—irritated, helpless, yet carrying a subtle undertone of trust—that Tony had worn whenever he mentioned this man.
A reckless decision took shape in her heart.
Taking a deep breath, she bypassed Natasha and stepped directly toward Leon.
No, she did not approach him to hand it over; instead, she turned and resolutely pressed the USB drive—the very key to Tony’s survival—into Natasha’s hand.
“Tony trusts him,” Pepper said, her voice quiet but carrying an unprecedented strength.
Then she turned back to Natasha, the confusion completely gone from her eyes.
“So, I will trust him too.
This evidence is in your hands, Agent Romanoff.
After this, whatever happens next has nothing to do with any of you.”
In this manner, she made her choice.
Be it the FBI or CIA, those were the rules of mortals.
Right now, she chose to place her faith in the “mysterious.”
Seeing Pepper’s action, the tension on Leon’s face finally melted into a relieved smile.
It was pale and weary, but entirely genuine.
To reach this point, he had paid a massive price.
Fortunately, his painstaking efforts had not been in vain.
The will of the mortal who would swing the hammer of finality had, at this moment, awakened.
“Come with me,” Leon told Pepper before turning to walk deeper into the building.
Pepper did not hesitate for a second and immediately followed.
Natasha gripped the still-warm USB drive, her brow furrowing deeply as she watched their retreating figures.
Her mission was to protect Pepper, and she should have stayed by her side.
But Pepper’s words just now felt like an invisible boundary line, dividing her and Coulson’s assignment from the “mysterious event” unfolding before her.
After a moment of hesitation, she followed them after all, but kept a prudent distance.
Leon led Pepper all the way into the deepest core of Stark Tower—the energy center of the Arc Reactor.
The massive, circular reactor hummed deeply beneath their feet, its glowing blue light casting a deep-sea hue over the entire space.
Leon wasted no words.
He raised his hand and pointed directly at a massive, eye-catching red emergency button on the complex control panel, protected under a plastic cover.
“Trust your judgment,” he said, looking Pepper straight in the eye with absolute solemnity.
“At the most critical, most despairing moment, open it and press it.
This is the choice of [The Lovers].”
Pepper’s gaze fell upon the red button.
It felt like a beating heart, radiating a lethal allure.
“Tony’s life is inside,” Leon’s voice echoed in her ears.
“And it is in your hands.”
With that, Leon gave her one last, deep look, then turned and walked back toward the corridor they came from.
“I’m going to help him.”
His voice drifted through the vast energy center, carrying an ironclad promise.
“I will bring him back, safe and sound.”
As his voice faded, his figure vanished into the shadows of the corridor, as though he had never been there at all.
Leaving Pepper Potts standing alone, staring across the space at the red button that would decide everything.
Not far away, Natasha stood half-hidden in the shadows, watching it all with a solemn expression, the communicator in her hand already relaying every detail in real-time to the one-eyed Director.