"What was there to talk about between us?"
Fury coughed twice. Multiple bones in his body were fractured, his muscles extensively bruised, and he had a mild concussion. Waves of weakness surged up from within him, yet his one eye remained exceptionally sharp, like a blazing fire.
He had never imagined that a guess born from instinct would turn out to be the final answer. The other man had drifted along the fringes of every major incident, seemingly unrelated to any of them, yet there had always been too many strange details worth pondering.
The Black director had harbored suspicions more than once. Looking over Sean Sipes's life record, every unexpected meteoric rise had been accompanied by the spectacular downfall of a person or corporation.
Gangs, Kingpin, Osborn Industries, Worthington Company, Stryker... So many incidents strung together could never have been mere coincidence.
"Don't you want to know why you're here? I had no reason to risk exposing my identity and go to such lengths to capture you."
Sean looked at the one-eyed Black man seated before him. Even now, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. retained a tenacious fighting spirit. Neither his physical injuries nor the earth-shattering revelation that Sean was the Sentry had completely brought him down.
Even without reading Nick Fury's thoughts, Sean could be certain that Fury was desperately seeking an opportunity—either to survive or to get the information out.
Top agents who had undergone professional training possessed extraordinarily resilient mental fortitude. Even torture might not pry open their mouths. They often regarded interrogation as a game; compared with physical torment, psychological tactics and hallucinogenic drugs were far more effective.
"Raven already told you. We'd like you to cooperate in a performance, so let me read you the script."
Seeing that the Black director remained silent, Sean picked