"Who was 'Doctor'?"
Natasha did not react at first. After all, the title Doctor could refer to a physician, a doctorate holder, or the codename of some special researcher. It was used far too broadly in modern times. Even in a place like S.H.I.E.L.D., there were plenty of people who could be called Doctor.
Natasha watched Nick's expression gradually turn ugly. Not understanding why, she sat across from him, intending to hear him tell a story from the past.
"Do you remember the Honshu Island sinking incident?" Nick's expression could no longer merely be described as ugly. More precisely, his face was almost as grim as Batman's.
"That was quite a spectacle." Natasha looked somewhat nostalgic as well. "It's been nearly sixty years, if you count it up... But didn't you say S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer had the secret files from back then? I've always been curious what kind of nuclear bomb could directly sink such a huge island. But this had nothing to do with us, right?... Right?"
Nick pressed his lips together and said nothing.
Natasha's eyes slowly widened.
Nick let out a long sigh, as though he had been holding it in for a long time. "It started a few months before the liberation of Berlin..."
Nick slowly recounted what had happened back then. Natasha listened intently, and when she heard him say that he had urged Congress to use that super nuclear bomb from Hydra, the female agent nearly choked herself to death trying to catch her breath.
"Cough, cough, cough! So the incident known as the greatest mass extinction tragedy in human history was caused by you?!"
"Not entirely." Nick still tried to argue. "That Doctor deliberately made me think he would keep using that nuclear bomb to threaten me, so I wanted to use it