A rare note of genuine exhaustion and agitation, squeezed out by immense pressure, seeped into Fury's voice. It was more impactful than any roar. His single eye, like a searchlight, locked onto Tony, his piercing gaze seeming to strip away all his technological confidence and arrogant façade. "Do you know how much effort it took to keep this thing in your 'basement' instead of having it forcibly taken over, dismantled, or even 'preemptively eliminated' by the Pentagon, the Kremlin, or any major power in the world capable of—and justified in—panicking...?"
"Do you know how much I put on the line? All of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s credibility, my personal political capital, even a military pledge before the UN Security Council! The only reason I convinced them was by guaranteeing that this place would have the tightest, most reliable, most transparent containment measures in the world! Guaranteeing that any disturbance, however slight, could be detected, assessed, and controlled immediately! Guaranteeing that no madman—including yourself—would have the chance to face it alone!"
He abruptly stepped toward Tony, closing the distance between them until they could feel each other's breath.
"That's the price, Stark! The price is that it can no longer be Tony Stark's private scientific experiment!"
He took a deep breath, as though drawing in the thin air around him, thick with radiation warnings. His voice carried an almost cruel resolve. "So put away that 'I can handle it alone' routine. Handle it privately? Guard it privately? The instant the highest levels learned of the Core's existence, that option vanished completely! This is now the forward outpost of human survival, and an outpost must have guards!"
Fury's voice suddenly rose, carrying an unquestionable decisiveness.
"It is now a global, highest-level potential extinction crisis! Once containment fails and the decay chain reaction in the core