Hawkeye hadn't said a word since the meeting began. He sat on a folding chair by the wall, elbows braced on his knees, back hunched, staring at a crack between the floor tiles as if a flower might bloom from it.
Hill watched him for several seconds before finally speaking. "Clint."
Hawkeye didn't look up. "Yeah."
Hill sighed. "You look awful."
Hawkeye slowly straightened, rubbed the back of his neck, then glanced at the main screen. Yongye was flashing a victory sign at the camera, grinning like a villain who'd just committed a crime in someone else's living room.
"I can't accept him suddenly climbing over every hero's head!"
"He turned Tony into a woman!"
"He stole the Cosmic Cube!"
"His identity and background are all fake!"
"He isn't a hero at all. He might not even be American. What gives him the right to oversee us?"
Hill sighed and said nothing.
Natasha took a sip of cold coffee, a faint, bitter smile touching her lips.
At the end of the corridor, Captain America, Steve Rogers, stood before a floor-to-ceiling window, gripping a copy of today's The New York Times. The front-page headline read:
"Eye Society Established! Mysterious Chinese-American Named Chairman, Vows to Be a Strict Father to All Superheroes."
He folded the newspaper and slipped it into his pocket, his jaw tightening slightly. Sunlight fell across his face, laying bare the complicated emotions in his eyes.
He murmured something too quietly to be heard over the hum of the central air-conditioning.
But a female office worker passing by caught it. She paused, gave Captain America's back a peculiar look, then hurried away.
What he'd said was: "...Red Skull is our boss now!"
Hundreds of kilometers away, in the laboratory atop Stark Tower in Midtown Manhattan, the mood was