05:45 PM – S.H.I.E.L.D. Mobile Command Unit, Pier 84
Nick Fury stood on the bridge of the command ship, watching the cleanup crews swarm the Manhattan docks. The city had been minutes away from annihilation. Six pods impacting at hypersonic speeds would have leveled three boroughs. Instead, they were intact. The Fantastic Four were alive, albeit changed.
And the sixth pod was gone.
Fury's jaw tightened. He wasn't used to losing assets. Especially not right out from under his nose.
"Director," an agent called out, rushing over with a tablet. "We have a visual confirmation on Superman. He's hovering over the East River. Alone."
Fury didn't hesitate. "Get me a quinjet. Now."
06:10 PM – East River Airspace
The quinjet hovered silently, cloaked, fifty yards from the Man of Steel. Superman floated in mid-air, cape snapping in the wind, eyes fixed on the Gotham skyline in the distance. He looked tired. Not physically—Fury knew nothing could tire Superman physically—but emotionally. The weight of a secret sat heavy on his shoulders.
Fury stepped out of the quinjet onto the wing, no harness, no fear. The wind roared, but he didn't flinch.
"Superman," he called out.
Clark turned slowly. His eyes were calm, but there was a steeliness behind them Fury hadn't seen before.
"Director Fury," Clark said. His voice was level. "You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you," Fury shot back, stepping closer. "You stole government property. A pod containing an unknown individual who just walked through a cosmic radiation storm. An individual who, by all accounts, doesn't exist on any manifest."
Clark's expression didn't change. "He's not government property. He's a person."
"Then give him to us," Fury said. "We need to question him. He infiltrated a classified mission. He was exposed to the same energy that turned Reed Richards into elastic and Victor Von Doom into a metal statue. We need to know what he is."
Clark's eyes narrowed slightly. "He's one of the heroes who eliminated the danger when it was needed. ."
Fury blinked. " Martian threat , he was present in that threat?"
"So you're protecting him," Fury stated.
"I'm respecting his privacy," Clark corrected. "He doesn't want to be bothered. He doesn't want to be tracked. He doesn't want S.H.I.E.L.D. poking into his life, running tests, or putting him on a watchlist."
Fury crossed his arms. "And if I refuse?"
Clark floated closer. The air pressure dropped. The quinjet's engines whined in protest.
"Then you'll be making a mistake," Clark said quietly. "Because he is really different from me, i beleive in kindness and he belive in something else, he can never tolerate threat to him and his thinking level is on whole different level "
The two men stared at each other. The hero and the spy. The symbol of hope and the master of secrets.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then, Clark turned away, looking back at Gotham. "Leave him alone, Nick. Please."
Before Fury could respond, Superman shot upward, breaking the sound barrier in an instant, vanishing into the clouds.
Fury stood alone on the quinjet wing, the wind howling around him.
He tapped his comms. "Get me back to base."
07:30 PM – S.H.I.E.L.D. Mobile Command Unit
Fury stormed into the briefing room, slamming his hand on the table. The agents jumped.
"Sir?" an assistant asked timidly. "Did he give you a name?"
Fury shook his head. "No. He gave me a warning."
He paced the room, his mind racing, connecting the dots. Superman's personal involvement. The secrecy. The protectiveness. The fact that he'd flown toward a specific location before vanishing.
He stopped pacing and looked at his team.
"Official channels are closed. Superman made that clear. If we try to track him directly, he'll shut us down. If we try to grab the individual, we'll have a war on our hands we can't win."
"So what do we do, sir?"
Fury's eye gleamed with a cold, calculated intensity.
" Find the Superman weakness, he is too strong, too much strong and we can't do damn thing to him, otherwise I have to call backup"
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a growl.