Human Bomb

The Avengers' new base, now officially named the Asgard Earth Exchange and Mutual Aid Association, sounds very much like a place where addicts help and encourage each other.

Since its construction, no one with an official background has ever visited this base. Since the White House incident, governments around the world have kept their distance from the Avengers.

Today we welcomed our first person with a government background, or more accurately, a member of the military: Iron Patriot, who will later become War Machine, Colonel Rhodes.

Of course, Colonel Rhodes is also one of Iron Man's best friends and can't be considered a government official, but today is an exception because he's here in military uniform.

And they came here to demand an explanation.

The reason, of course, was because the address Xia Yu gave to the reporters was simply too vulgar and shameless.

But it's clear the Avengers didn't take it seriously.

The Science Team is engrossed in their research.

Hawkeye and Thor are playing games, while Natasha is watching movies online.

Only Xia Yu and Tony were entertaining Rhodey.

It wasn't really a reception; the three of them were sitting together on the sofa, Tony was drinking coffee, and he looked gloomy.

Xia Yu was brewing Kung Fu tea, cup after cup.

But neither of them seemed inclined to get up and pour Rhodey a glass.

Rhodey had been there for about ten minutes. He greeted everyone and then fell into a deep silence.

Finally, Colonel Rhodes lost his temper and spoke up, "Shouldn't you give me an explanation, especially you, Xia? You declared war on terrorists, so why did you give out our address?"

"I think you owe me an explanation. Why didn't you notify us of the terrorist attack? You tried to handle it yourselves, but you didn't handle it properly, and as a result, my friend was injured. Happy is also your friend, Rhodey, and you haven't even gone to the hospital to see him."

It was Tony who spoke, and he had every reason to be angry.

Rhodey was at a loss for words and could only forcefully change the subject, "Nobody wants this to happen. At least I'm your friend, right? Why haven't any of you poured me a cup of coffee or tea since I've been here? Especially you, Xia, I've watched you drink two pots of tea. Why didn't you pour me a cup?"

Rhodey swallowed hard; to be honest, he was indeed thirsty.

No sooner had Rhodey finished speaking than Thor, who was shouting and playing a game, suddenly stood up, walked up to Rhodey, stared straight at Rhodey, and picked up his hammer.

"What... what are you going to do?" Rhodey swallowed again.

"I'm thirsty, have some tea!" Thor stared at Rhodey for a while, then suddenly picked up a small cup in front of Xia Yu, poured himself a cup of tea, drank it all in one gulp, and went back to playing his game.

"Look, look, Rhodey, this is what it means to be one of us. We treat you like family. Family members don't need to be polite with each other. We treat you like family, but you don't trust us. Why didn't you tell us about the terrorist attack earlier? It's like asking for water; sometimes you have to take the initiative."

Xia Yu sat up straight, looked at Rhodey with a pained expression.

"Then you can't reveal the address of our base either. Do you know what that means? If our base is attacked..."

Rhodey was interrupted by Xia Yu before he could finish speaking.

"This means you wanted to handle the terrorist attack, but couldn't find the terrorists. I'm now kindly leading the terrorists there for you, so you can finally prove your ability to protect the people."

Rhodey thought about it for a while, but something still felt off.

Xia Yu didn't give him time to think and continued to deceive him, "Look, you should go back and prepare now. Do you think a few terrorists can just force their way into U.S. Military base? You don't have any objections to that, do you?"

"That's right, our military can't be afraid of a few terrorists who secretly plant bombs." Rhodey nodded, his face full of honest patriotism.

"Then you should prepare a tight net, wait for them to come, capture them all, seize a few alive to find out their secret base, then gather your forces and wipe them all out in one fell swoop. Then the world will be at peace, you will be rewarded for your merit, and I thank you on behalf of the people."

Xia Yu patted Rhodey on the shoulder, speaking earnestly.

"That makes sense. I'll go back and prepare right away." Rhodey quickly stood up.

"They injured Happy, I'm going to deal with them myself, I want to join in," Tony said from the side.

"Happy is Tony's friend, and he's all our friends. We're here to avenge our friend and help you. He definitely won't come today, but we'll go to your base tomorrow, and together we'll eliminate the terrorists and avenge Happy."

Rhodey nodded repeatedly, and the two sides reached a pleasant consensus. Xia Yu got up to see Rhodey off.

Rhodey drove back, feeling like something was off the whole way, until he slapped his forehead as he entered the base.

"You provoked the terrorists and said you wanted a decisive battle, so why are you fighting on my turf? By the time you wipe them out, you've already made your statements to the reporters. All people will remember is your Avengers? I remember I was going to confront them, so why did I come back?"

Rhodey drove the car into the base, went into his office, took out a small notebook, and wrote something down seriously.

Xia Yu is a liar. Be very careful when dealing with him in the future, or you might easily forget your purpose.

After finishing writing, I closed the notebook. As I closed it, I could still vaguely see the first few pages, with some words that said something like, "Tony Stark was a few hours late on a certain day and stood me up."

Although he was fooled by Xia Yu, the terrorists still had to be caught. Although only two the Mandarin bombing incidents were publicly announced, including Happy one, Rhodey knew that this was the tenth time.

He absolutely wouldn't allow something like that to happen again, so Rhodey still made careful arrangements, preferably evacuating more soldiers from the base. Since the Avengers were coming, let them be the main force. Did they really think I, Colonel Rhodes, was that stupid?

At the Avengers Compound, Tony obtained information on all the bombings from the FBI, CIA, and military over the past few months and used JARVIS to create a virtual crime scene.

The location where Happy was injured had an explosion center with a temperature exceeding 3,000 degrees Celsius. Anything within an 11.4-meter radius would have been instantly vaporized, but no bomb fragments were found within a three-mile radius of the Huaxia Theatre.

"Xia, when do you think a bomb will stop being a bomb?" Tony casually asked Xia Yu for his opinion.

"Human bomb!" Natasha and Hawkeye exclaimed in unison.