Chapter 870 Starlight Splendor (15)_1

Peter returned to Stark Building once again. In the hallway, he called Coulson, but Coulson didn't pick up. He then phoned Steve, and from the other end of the line came Steve's voice, frail with sorrow and weariness:

"Peter, I know you don't want to believe it. Stark didn't want to tell you himself, out of fear it would hurt you. But I've just seen the body myself..."

Steve's voice started to tremble as he said, "Maybe you don't know, Nick lived long, but it was dependent on a certain antidote. It's different from my Super Soldier Serum. It cannot provide super strength or super-fast regeneration. Peter, Nick wasn't like us. He wasn't a Super Soldier, he was just an ordinary man."

"A sniper bullet pierced his chest, shattering his heart. I saw the huge hole in his chest and the fragments of his heart..." Steve's voice was filled with grief, causing Peter to believe his words.

He knew that Captain America wouldn't lie to him, he wouldn't deceive him on purpose. Moreover, Peter's Spider-sense had told him there was no threat when he dealt with Nick Fury in the past.

This proved that though Nick Fury might be the King of Special Agents, his physical capabilities did not surpass ordinary people by much. A single sniper bullet was enough to take his life.

At this moment, Shiller's voice appeared on the call. He said, "Peter, don't dwell on it. Return to the lab. In a few days, you'll be fine. We'll let you know when the funeral will be held."

"I knew they wouldn't let it rest! I warned Nick not to go alone back then, but he insisted. You took his side then, and look where it's gotten us!" Stark's voice echoed angrily in the background, lamenting,

"Steve Rogers, you've lost yet another comrade! Now, who are you going to blame? The world?"

"I've said this before, things are not as peachy as you think they are. You guys are just ignorantly blissful every day, while those people... those scheming lots... they're ready to take our lives at any moment!"

"Alright, Tony, this isn't Steve's fault." Shiller's voice chimed in. Because Shiller was closer to the microphone, Peter could hear him very clearly. He heard Shiller say, "We really underestimated their audacity in taking action against Nick…"

"And moreover, the amount of assassins who dare to strike at the Congress and still manage to escape unscathed are few. It must have been someone experienced, and the person who hired him…" Shiller drew in a deep breath and said, "Considering the friction between S.H.I.E.L.D and the military recently, no one would believe us if we said the military didn't do it."

"I will go and speak to them." Steve's voice intervened. He said, "I must go and speak to them!"

"That's your reaction to all this?" Stark's voice of contempt rang out again. He said, "Your old comrade dies right in front of you, and all you're going to do is go and 'talk' to them? Negotiate with these human traitors?? Is that what you really want?!"

"Enough, stop arguing, let's discuss a solution..."

The grip Peter had on his phone kept tightening. He didn't take in anything after that. With a "crack" sound, he crushed the phone into pieces.

As the crushed pieces fell to the floor, a mechanical arm moved beside Peter, picked up the fragments, and tossed them into the trash can. Peter turned around, Jarvis had a hand on his shoulder.

The eyes on the mechanical mask blinked once. Peter asked, his voice trembling, "Jarvis, why did they have to do this?"

Jarvis shook his head slightly. The sound of mechanical parts rubbing against each other seemed rather piercing. Peter closed his eyes and clenched his fist, feeling helpless in the dim hallway. He said,

"Every time I think things are heading in a good direction, there's an unexpected turn of events. I thought humanity was united, and we could strive together. Was my thinking too naive?"

The towering robot knelt down and peered at Peter with glowing eyes. As their glow shimmered, Peter slowly recalled a conversation when Nick had once tried to persuade him during a late-night meeting at the S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters.

"Peter, you need to know, we have to seize this opportunity, make the most of this golden era. This might be humanity's only chance to venture into the cosmos." Nick looked straight at Peter's eyes and continued, "We need more talent, there's no shame in that. It's humanity's dream, no matter which universe they come from, they must all feel the same..."

Nick's eyes shone with a different light. From his tone, Peter detected a sincerity borne of hope, unlike Nick's usual demeanor. "Our time is running out, so we need more people to work for this cause, isn't that right?" he said.

"Director Fury, each research project is meticulously planned. Even if we sent ten thousand people to Mercury Base right now and placed all the groundwork pieces, we would still have to wait for research to be completed on the building components." Peter adjusted his glasses as he explained, "You can't rush scientific research. If we're too eager for results, we might mess up and the losses would be even greater."

Nick took a deep breath and said, "Peter, I understand where you're coming from. You're a researcher and you're known for your rigorous approach. But you need to try to understand the current situation... "

"What's wrong with the current situation? Isn't everything going well?" Peter shrugged and said, "Everything is sublimely going according to plan, be it international aerospace technology development or the various technical researches on Mercury Base. Just a few days ago, I heard Doctor Dora say that another project was finished and achieved remarkable results."

Peter looked at Nick and said: "Director, maybe you're just being a little too anxious. Actually, if we continue to develop at this steady pace, sooner or later, mankind will be able to venture into the cosmos and roam among the stars."

Nick returned to his desk and sat down. He said, "Peter, as a child of the new era, you may not realize that it's not the first time that the human race has come infinitely close to this great goal."

"In the era you don't understand, we did even more. In the age when basic science advanced by leaps and bounds, the entire human race dreamt of us leaving the bounds of gravity and freely soaring between the cosmos."

"Perhaps, in the museums of that era, you've seen many rusted rockets and spaceship model toys. That is not an exception."

"I was born in an ordinary farmer's family in Alabama. The only toy I had was a small rocket that could be fired."

"It was simple; it had a spring at the bottom that would propel it upwards slightly when pressed. It didn't fly high, and the quality wasn't good either, the paint peeled off after a few flights."

Nick Fury picked up his pen, made a rocket-launching motion and then let the pen drop onto the table. He said, "Like this, childish, right? But in that era, it was already an amazing toy, and my favorite one at that."

"Later, I joined the army. During World War II, I lost an eye because of shrapnel from a grenade, but at the same time, I was injected with a drug that gave me a long lifespan."

"During the Cold War, I joined the Central Intelligence Agency, and my main opponent was the Soviet Union."

Nick leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling with his remaining eye. He said, "You may find it hard to imagine that although they were my opponents, my team and department thought that half of the future of the human race rested on their shoulders. And the folks in the KGB thought the same of us."

"We both wanted to prove that we were stronger than the other, but at the same time, we admitted that the other was strong. You may not believe it, but a lot of the intelligence we collected was used to praise the Soviet Union. It's incredible, right? Now all you see is denigration, but back then it wasn't like that..."

"When their rockets were launched successfully, we expressed admiration and acknowledged their progress. Then we would go to our aerospace department, where they would confidently assure us that we were not weaker."

"So it went, you launched a rocket today, and I tested equipment tomorrow. During that peak period of technical development, we used methods unimaginable to modern people to send what now appear to be incredibly primitive equipment into space, and we cheered and boasted for this."

"That was the closest mankind had been to the stars in tens of thousands of years."

Peter stared at Nick with surprise. He had never thought that the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, who was always persuading him to cheat labor from other universes with glib words, could have such a side.

He felt that at this moment, Nick was similar to Steve. People of their era always possessed a kind of amazing vitality and an inexplicable belief, different from this era that had been swept by despair and punk.

But Peter knew, in reality, that the technology of that time couldn't be compared with today's solar system development plan. They could now send equipment to Mercury and easily assemble them. No matter the era, mankind had never achieved this feat.

Peter admitted, standing in the hallway, he had some contempt for Nick's thoughts at that time.

He believed that times would only get better, not regress. Technically, there has indeed been progress, and mankind has continued to move forward steadily. Why bother cherishing the past?

But now, Peter understood what Nick was really nostalgic about. The focus of his words wasn't about how much tin was thrown into the sky during that time.

But rather, Nick Fury, as a native-born American, a soldier who had received American education since childhood, a superb agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, still nostalgically remembering the era of the Soviet Union after so many years.

This is almost unimaginable. It was not a brainwashing control of a big country over a smaller one, but the collision of two major nations. What he received was not national hatred education, but a shining future of humanity.

Peter suddenly realized what he was anxious about. At this moment, he recognized that he shouldn't underestimate the wisdom of a long-liver. The longer one lives, the clearer the understanding of human nature.

Has he been nurturing illusions all along, ignoring the essence of human nature? Perhaps not, he has just been using the development of technology as a fact to evade certain things.

But now, the gunshot from the Congress was telling him, evasion is useless, meaningless fantasies should be given up, otherwise, no matter how sturdy the armor, or how strong the chest, it won't withstand a bullet aimed at the heart from the darkness.

Putting on the battlesuit and the mask, standing in front of the window, Spider Man halted, turned to look at Jarvis. Jarvis waved at him, as though bidding him farewell.

Spider Man leapt out and swung in the cold wind above New York. Standing on the roof of the Stark Building, he let out a soundless roar.

Dark clouds covered the sky, the moonlight no longer bright, at this moment, New York was under dark clouds.