As Nick said those words, helplessness filled his heart.
He was certain he was the most put-upon Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in history.
Just look at his predecessor, who had wielded absolute authority and commanded respect everywhere. Then look at him, constantly bowing his head and groveling. The thought alone was enough to bring him to tears.
Hearing this, Tony also began to give it serious thought.
Honestly, he had no desire to burn bridges with S.H.I.E.L.D. right now. Otherwise, he would not have let Nick off last time.
Captain Marvel was one reason.
The second was that even if he did not care about himself, he still had to consider Stark Industries.
Of course, if the benefits were great enough, burning bridges was an option. But symbiotes alone were not enough to make Tony pay such a steep price.
With things having reached this point and Nick backing down again, stopping here was not out of the question.
But that raised another question: what should he ask for in return?
That was right. He was treating Nick as an ATM. Otherwise, why would he have let him cause so much trouble?
If he demanded too much, Nick might refuse, but if he asked for too little, he would feel shortchanged. It was quite a headache.
Fortunately, with his memories of his previous life to draw on, Tony soon settled on a target.
"We can put what happened today behind us."
"I hear S.H.I.E.L.D. has a Tesseract. Hand it over to me, and we'll call this settled."
Nick immediately frowned.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had only one Tesseract. It had come from Hydra, recovered by Steve when he stormed Hydra's headquarters.
Although Hydra had valued it highly, S.H.I.E.L.D. had spent decades studying it without discovering how to use it. All they knew was that