The Friendship Kiss Returns

After thinking it over, Mike called Coulson's cell phone.

It rang a few times before connecting.

"Hello, who is this?"

A middle-aged man who had already started going bald just wanted a good night's sleep. Was that so hard? Coulson's morning temper was off the charts. Still groggy, he had not even checked the caller ID.

"It's me."

"Mike!" Coulson jolted awake, instantly half-alert. Recently, anything involving Mike had basically meant trouble, followed by a huge mess to clean up.

"Three or four minutes ago, I was ambushed by a gunman on the street about fifty meters from my supermarket. The sniper's position was in a room in a high-rise roughly five hundred meters away from me. The room suffered a violent explosion, and the gunman's motorcycle appeared to be Harley's Cosmic Starship."

The motorcycle known as the "Cosmic Starship" was worth a million US dollars and was hailed as the dream bike of millions. Very few people could afford one, making it a traceable lead.

"The gunman was about 1.83 meters tall and weighed around eighty kilograms. He wore a black leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet, so I couldn't see his face. He could easily hit someone suddenly lunging forward from five hundred meters away. He wasn't an ordinary sniper."

"I also found two special custom-made rounds. There aren't many craftsmen capable of that kind of work, so that's another lead. I'll send you photos."

Even though he knew Mike could not see his expression over the phone, Coulson still wore his trademark smile. If he needed something, then this would be easy.

"Mike, S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't a private organization. There are some things I can't just do because I want to. Procedures, understand? Accessing nearby public surveillance footage, requesting police cooperation, even deploying military-grade satellites—everything requires an application. And afterward, there'll be mountains of reports..." The other end of the line remained very quiet. Coulson could not help asking, "Mike, do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes. You're explaining how difficult this is in order to raise the price."

Mike sneered. These were tricks the ancestors of China had played to death ages ago, and Coulson had the nerve to show them off?

"Uh..."

I named a price, you countered, then we haggled back and forth until we settled on something both sides could accept. That was how it was supposed to go, right? Why weren't you following the script?

But Mike was quite displeased. It was not as if only S.H.I.E.L.D. could handle this. The key was obtaining the surveillance footage and extracting useful information from the vast amount of video.

Anything S.H.I.E.L.D. could do, Tony Stark could do too. The difference was that S.H.I.E.L.D. did it legally, while Stark did it illegally.

Maybe Skye could handle the whole thing with just a laptop.

Mike felt that asking S.H.I.E.L.D. for help was an opportunity for it to reverse its pathetic image in his mind.

"Are you helping or not? One word."

"I'll help!" Coulson gritted his teeth.

"Good. That's it. Let me know when you have something."

Mike hung up, thinking, I'll count this as owing you a favor. At worst, I'll save your life someday. That's a big enough favor, right?

"Phew..."

Mike slowly headed back. It took him several minutes to walk a little over a hundred meters. It was not that he did not want to move faster—his ribs were fractured. Fortunately, his physical constitution was strong. Under the effects of Soul Energy and Destiny Energy, Mike could even feel the numb, itchy sensation of his bones and muscles repairing themselves.

An injury that would leave an ordinary person bedridden in a hospital for two months would probably require only three to five days of rest for Mike.

He pushed open the door.

He saw Skye covering her mouth to keep herself from crying aloud, though tears still streamed uncontrollably down her face.

"You saw it all?" Mike scratched his head.

"Mm." Skye wiped her tears and nodded. "I was just about to close up and lock the door."

From a hundred meters away, with only streetlights illuminating the road, she had recognized Mike from his blurred silhouette alone.

She had seen Mike slam heavily into the ground.

Then she heard the gunshot.

In the United States, gunshots were like firecrackers in China. After hearing them often enough, people naturally became familiar with them.

At that moment, Skye had felt as though her heart had stopped beating. The world spun around her, and everything went dark.

Then she saw Mike stand up.

Thankfully, Mike had stood up. Otherwise, Skye might have fainted from heartache.

"I thought you'd been shot."

Crying, Skye rushed over and hugged Mike. Then, her lips clumsy and inexperienced, she explored Mike's lips.

Salty. The taste of tears.

Pain!

"I think you can be more confident and remove the 'thought,'" Mike said, grimacing in pain.

Why had it not hurt this much just now?

Did men occasionally show their vulnerable side in front of women?

"Huh?!" Skye did not understand at first.

"I mean, I really was shot."

"Then, then... what do we do? Right, call an ambulance. Go to the hospital!"

"Don't!"

Mike grabbed the panicked Skye. "No need to go to the hospital. Go get a pair of scissors."

Using the scissors, he slowly cut open his T-shirt, revealing a patch of dark purple-black across his chest.

The moment Skye saw it, her tears began falling again.

"Don't cry." Skye was nothing like the cool, capable woman she would become after joining S.H.I.E.L.D. Mike used his thumb to wipe away her falling tears. "It's not as serious as it looks."

Mike had Skye bring over a large pack of wet wipes. With one wipe, the tissue immediately turned red.

"My body is automatically expelling the pooled blood."

"Really?"

"Really. Look! Isn't the dark bruising on my chest a little lighter?"

"I think so."

Like hell it was. Only a tiny bit had come out—how could anyone tell it had lightened? It was just a psychological effect.

"What should we do now?"

"Hmm..." Mike thought for a moment. "How about... continuing that kiss from earlier?"

Skye's face instantly turned red as a tomato. "Earlier, earlier... anyway, that... mmph..."

"You were going to call it a friendship kiss, weren't you?"

"Yes, yes, yes! That's exactly what I wanted to say!"

Mike suddenly sealed her mouth—with his lips.

"Mmph..."

"What?"

"I can't breathe."

"Oh, friendship lasts forever. It's perfectly reasonable for the kiss to last a little longer."

"Again... mmph..."

Ten minutes later, Skye glared at Mike with puffed cheeks. "You wanted to use your tongue just now, didn't you?"

"No." Mike looked utterly innocent.

"Whether you did or not, you're not allowed next time! You can't even think about it. It's so dirty!"

"Next time? What next time?" Mike played dumb.

"I mean..." Skye stamped her foot.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Mike once again captured Skye's lips, unwilling to part from them for a long time.

"You should be thinking about the time after next," Mike whispered into Skye's ear.

"I'll walk you upstairs." It felt very late, so Mike said to Skye.

"No!" Skye shook her head in refusal.

"You couldn't be..." Mike grinned mischievously. "Isn't this moving a little too fast?"

Skye raised her hand as if to hit him. "What are you thinking about?! Hmph!"

She took another wet wipe and wiped away the blood seeping from his bruise, then asked, "Are all your missions this dangerous?"

"Most of them are. This mission involved Vampires, as well as mutated Vampires called Reapers." Mike spoke gloomily. "The person who ambushed me just now might have been an enemy. So it isn't just my missions that are dangerous. The people around me could be in danger too."

"You'll protect me, right?"

"Mm!"

"Then that settles it. And I'll become stronger too, so I can protect myself."

At that moment, red energy drifted out from Skye's body.

What was going on?