"Please have Agent Romanoff come here."
After a brief moment of contemplation, Nick Fury pressed the intercom and casually gave the order.
Soon, a seductive female agent with brown-red curly hair and an explosive figure appeared in front of Nick Fury.
It was none other than one of the two current members of the Avengers—Black Widow.
Slap!
Without saying a word, Nick Fury tossed a stack of documents onto Black Widow's desk.
Black Widow picked them up, flipped through them, and curiously asked, "Sir, why are you suddenly so interested in a dead soldier?"
The stack of documents Nick Fury handed to Black Widow wasn't just any ordinary paperwork. It was related to Captain America's last mission and his fall into the ocean.
The documents were incredibly detailed, including not only the specifics of Captain America's mission but also the subsequent military search and rescue briefings.
It even contained the exact coordinates of the marked locations and the detailed search results, clear as day.
It's worth noting that since the documents were from an earlier time, they were in paper form and had not been digitized. Iron Man had never received this critical information.
"I've received some very important intel. Everyone thinks Captain America is dead, but he might not have died at all," Nick Fury said seriously.
"Moreover, after his plane crash, he could have been frozen in the icy waters all this time."
"So, I need you to confirm this."
Nick Fury spoke earnestly to Black Widow.
Agent Coulson had already shared with Nick Fury the "magic theory" and "cryogenic preservation theory" regarding the possibility of Captain America's survival.
From Nick Fury's perspective, both theories were somewhat reasonable.
The only difference was that one was magical in nature, while the other was technological, with different areas of knowledge involved.
However, Agent Coulson's magic theory couldn't be verified, whereas Tony Stark's cryogenic preservation theory had practical possibilities for verification.
So, after careful consideration, Nick Fury decided to send a team to the Arctic Ocean to investigate further.
"Sir, this sounds a little crazy," Black Widow was the first to react, finding it far-fetched. "No one can survive in those conditions for seventy years without dying."
"It's a bit crazy," Nick Fury didn't deny it, "But compared to some of the other even crazier things I've seen, this is nothing."
"Understood, sir!" Black Widow didn't argue further.
"I'll assign you a tactical team to command. I want you to recheck every location that Stark and the others searched during the rescue mission."
"If you find anything, report back immediately."
Nick Fury gave his orders seriously.
Of course, the Stark here wasn't the current billionaire, genius, playboy Tony Stark, but rather Tony Stark's father, Howard Stark.
When Captain America fell into the ocean, Howard Stark had participated in the search, but he never found Captain America's body. However, he did recover the Cosmic Cube that had fallen into the water.
That Cosmic Cube was still secretly stored in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base.
"Received!"
After Black Widow responded, she immediately turned and walked out briskly.
Once Black Widow left, Nick Fury continued handling other matters. In the afternoon, Agent Coulson returned, bringing with him some sketches.
"Sir, this is the image of the cosmic tyrant Thanos."
Agent Coulson took out the first sketch and placed it in front of Nick Fury. "But his skin is purple."
Nick Fury glanced at it, non-committal, merely storing the image in his mind.
After all, it was an alien. Even if he had the image, he didn't think it would be of much use.
"There's also this person, a magician."
Agent Coulson followed up by showing a portrait of a person with a long face, wearing a cloak. "This person opened a portal and pointed a finger at Iron Man, as if trying to remind him of something."
"This portrait, how accurate is it?" Nick Fury asked, now visibly more interested.
"About seventy or eighty percent," Agent Coulson replied uncertainly. "This person's 'appearance' was too brief for me to recall more."
Nick Fury nodded. "That's good enough. I'll have someone look into it."
A similarity of seventy to eighty percent was already quite high. The only issue was that according to Agent Coulson, the images in question seemed to be from the future, maybe ten years or so from now.
And a person's appearance could change considerably over such a period.
Nevertheless, the portraits Agent Coulson provided were still valuable intelligence.
"Thanos and this magician left a stronger impression since they appeared earlier."
"The rest of the people, the memories become more blurry, with lower accuracy," Agent Coulson added.
Nick Fury nodded, unsurprised. He casually picked up more sketches to review.
Some portraits only got a glance from Nick Fury, but his gaze lingered on a few battle scenes.
The images of alien spacecraft, winged horses, and snail-antennaed creatures were indeed quite valuable for reference.
"Wait… this flying winged device…"
Finally, Nick Fury's eyes landed on a portrait of a person with wings on their back, flying through the sky with goggles.
He didn't pay much attention to the person's face, but the wings caught his eye.
After a moment of contemplation, Nick Fury called another intercom. "Archives, send me the files for the EXO-7 Falcon program, retrieval code 00421."
Soon, a file was delivered to Nick Fury's hands.
"Sam Wilson. I think I've found our 'Birdman' boy," Nick Fury said to Agent Coulson, holding up the file.
"Sam Wilson served in the 58th Airborne Rescue Squadron, participated in the EXO-7 Falcon secret program, and after the unfortunate death of the pilot, he retired and worked at the Veterans Affairs office…"
"Additionally, this 'Birdman gear' is now stored in a military base in Midgard…"
After reviewing the file, Nick Fury casually told Agent Coulson, "It seems another person has been added to our watch list."
(End of Chapter)