Chapter 28: Nick Fury's Gambit
Ethan picked up the phone at his own pace, eyes on Coulson and Natasha as they fidgeted across the table.
Behind them stood his crew. Marcus — white-haired and stone-faced. Caine — leaning on his cane, radiating quiet menace. Wade — in full mask, trying to get a selfie with Natasha from behind while she pretended he didn't exist. And John Wick — the only one who looked remotely normal in his tailored suit.
Four tough guys, Ethan thought. Well — "tough guys" might be generous. Four extremely weird men. He almost laughed.
"Mr. Cross. I'm Nick Fury, Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." The voice on the other end was measured, authoritative.
"Director Fury. To what do I owe the honor? I'm nobody special."
"Let's not play that game." Fury's tone flattened. "Ethan Cross. Father killed in a gang war when you were ten. Raised by your godfather, Wilson Fisk. Started mercenary work at eighteen — your body count in that period alone runs into the hundreds. Graduated from Cornell's School of Business last year, took over your father's building, renamed the restaurant the Lucky Dragon."
"At eighteen, you encountered Pietro and Wanda Maximoff — orphaned by the Sokovian civil war — and became their legal guardian."
"In under a year, you brought twenty-five blocks of Hell's Kitchen under your control. Most crime syndicates can't manage that in a decade."
"Recently, you extracted Tony Stark from Afghanistan and made a fortune short-selling Stark Industries stock. I'm curious how you knew the price would drop."
"And now you're one of the High Table's Twelve. Quite the résumé for a man your age."
Fury rattled it off like a grocery list. Every detail of Ethan's life, laid bare.
"That sounds like a violation of my privacy," Ethan said.
He knew what this was. A power play. Fury was telling him: We know everything. We can find out what color underwear you're wearing and how many times you went to the bathroom today. Don't test us.
"We're simply doing our jobs," Fury said, the righteousness thick in his voice. "Our mandate is the protection of global security. We have an obligation to assess whether any individual poses a threat to this nation and to the world. Everything we do is in service of peace."
Ethan marveled at the audacity. Surveillance and invasion of privacy, repackaged as a sacred duty. Only Nick Fury could make spying on people sound like charity work.
"And the profiling?" Ethan asked coolly. "You're trying to pin me as some kind of hate criminal. I don't target anyone by race. I go after people who hurt innocents — people with evidence stacked against them. Every job I've ever taken came with documentation from the victims. I've never killed anyone. Those people all died in accidents. It just so happens that most of the offenders fit a certain demographic."
"Accidents or not, those people were entitled to due process," Fury shot back. "You bypassed the federal justice system. That's contempt of law."
"If the federal system actually worked, people wouldn't need to hire someone like me. And Hell's Kitchen wouldn't exist. Justice that arrives too late isn't justice at all."
Ethan had no interest in a philosophical debate with Nick Fury. "Let's cut the morality play. We both know what your agency is. Wolves in sheep's clothing. Tell me why you're really calling."
"Fine. It's simple. I'll keep the Maximoff twins off every government radar. In exchange, you release Romanoff, Coulson, and my agents. We walk away and pretend today never happened."
Fury clearly considered this magnanimous — the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. personally calling to negotiate was, in his mind, already an enormous concession.
Ethan almost hung up. "That's your offer? You threaten my family, invade my home, and your idea of making things right is not reporting my family to the government?"
He stood and walked out of the restaurant, switching the phone to speaker. The street was clear of civilians — nothing but prone S.H.I.E.L.D. agents pinned to the asphalt. The speaker volume was more than enough for every one of them to hear.
"Director Fury — care to revise your offer? I'm thinking one million per agent. Coulson and Romanoff are extra — they personally threatened me, which caused significant emotional distress to my young and fragile heart. Ten million each."
Fury's voice came through strained, like a man clutching his chest. "You can't be serious. A million per head, plus twenty million for two agents — that's over a hundred million dollars. S.H.I.E.L.D. will not pay that kind of money."
"Oh — one thing I forgot to mention, Director." Ethan crouched beside a pinned agent and held the phone closer. "I've had you on speaker this whole time. Every word you've said has been heard by every agent on this street."
He looked down at the agent beneath him. The man's eyes were wide, darting.
"You hear that?" Ethan said conversationally. "Your boss just told me you're not worth a million dollars. You risk your life for S.H.I.E.L.D. every day, and when it comes time to bring you home, you don't even clear the price of a Manhattan apartment. If I were you, I'd quit tonight."
On the other end of the line, Fury realized — too late — what Ethan had done. Blatant, shameless divide-and-conquer, broadcast to his entire field team. He nearly choked on his own fury.
"What. Do. You. Want." The words came through clenched teeth. "You want us to level Hell's Kitchen? Give me a real number, Cross."