At those words, the atmosphere in the room changed instantly.
Tony slammed down his glass, splashing liquor onto the table. "Wait. Carol Danvers? Who's that?"
Steve frowned too, turning to stare at Nick Fury.
Natasha and Barton exchanged a glance. Both had spent years undercover in S.H.I.E.L.D., yet neither had ever heard that codename.
Talos sneered. "Twenty years ago, a human woman absorbed the Tesseract's energy on Earth. All by herself, she smashed straight through the Kree Empire's Accuser flagship in near-Earth orbit! Fury has a specially made communicator that can contact her. She's the strongest fighter your people have ever sent out from Earth, but this director of yours would rather watch New York turn into a meat grinder than let that secret out!"
Tony's expression darkened completely.
Steve slowly rose, walked up to Nick Fury, and looked down at him.
"Nick, is what he said true?"
Fury leaned back against the steel chair, avoiding Steve's gaze.
"Answer me!" Steve suddenly raised his voice, the sound exploding through the reception room like thunder. "During the Battle of New York, you had a trump card that could have ended the war quickly. Why didn't you use it?"
A muscle twitched in Fury's cheek. At last, he raised his head and braced himself to meet everyone's eyes.
"Because she was humanity's last line of defense!"
Fury growled, "Carol patrols deep space. The crises she faces can wipe out entire star systems! The Chitauri vanguard was small-time stuff. Earth's own superheroes were enough to handle the defense of New York! If we revealed our ultimate trump card in a battle of that scale, what would Earth use to hold off another crisis afterward?!"
Small-time stuff?
Disappointment all but spilled from Steve's eyes.
Thousands of innocent civilians had died in New York that