A Name Buried in Dust!

"I find it hard to believe he ever said the whole future would depend on me, that he passed that responsibility on to me! I don't understand! His happiest day was the day he sent me off to boarding school!"

Chen Mo merely shook his head gently.

"That wasn't the case. I don't think you truly understood him."

"Old man, even if you were comrades-in-arms, could you possibly understand him better than I, his own son?"

Facing Tony Stark's questioning, Chen Mo nodded.

"In fact, I did. Howard wasn't just my comrade-in-arms. He was also one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D.!"

"What?!"

Tony Stark could not help crying out in shock.

Before this, he had only known that his father, Howard, had fought alongside Chen Mo on the European battlefield. Of course, Howard had served as a logistics researcher, providing them with technological support and equipment.

As for S.H.I.E.L.D., Chen Mo had told them some of its secrets before, including Sharon's background and the fact that Captain America Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter had faked their deaths. But Chen Mo had never mentioned Howard, so Tony had not given it much thought. Now that he connected the pieces, though, it was not impossible to accept.

According to Chen Mo, he, Steve, Carter, and the others had founded S.H.I.E.L.D. to preserve world peace and protect Earth, operating from the shadows. He had not said who exactly had created S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time, but the three of them had all fought alongside Howard in Europe. It was hardly surprising, then, that Howard had founded S.H.I.E.L.D. with them.

Even so, Tony still found it hard to accept.

In his memory, Howard had been a workaholic and arms dealer obsessed with technological research and expanding his company, someone who devoted all his energy to