Fenris forcibly suppressed his excitement and looked toward the Encyclopedia again.
Beneath Mothra, a faint progress bar shimmered in and out of view.
In his current state, as time passed, the bar was steadily advancing at an almost imperceptible pace.
"It's fine. I've got plenty of time now."
Fenris let out a long breath, slowly closed his eyes, and before long slipped into a strange, special state.
Threads of light began leaking faintly from his skin. A moment later, the previously ordinary cocoon started flashing with five-colored radiance.
"What is that?"
Outside, Peter Parker had not left right away. Instead, he sat nearby chatting quietly with Logan, and the strange phenomenon coming from the cocoon caught his attention almost immediately.
"Your web can glow too?"
Logan straightened up, staring in shock.
"No way..."
Peter muttered to himself and rose to his feet in disbelief.
"How many secrets does this kid even have..."
Logan clicked his tongue inwardly in amazement.
Everyone assumed Fenris's ability was simply turning into a powerful giant lizard, but obviously, lizards did not willingly wrap themselves in cocoons.
"Not simple. Not simple at all."
Logan turned it over in his head for a moment, then quickly lost interest in digging deeper.
Who didn't have a few secrets of their own?
Knock knock! Knock!
Time ticked by second after second. Just as Logan was starting to doze off, a sudden burst of urgent knocking came from outside.
"Who is it?"
Logan frowned. Neither he nor Fenris knew anyone in New York.
The knocking paused for a moment, then resumed soon after.
"Are they friends of yours?"
Peter, standing nearby, also sensed that something was wrong. He instinctively swung his backpack behind him, then pulled a red mask from his pocket.
"No idea."
Logan glanced toward Fenris.
He did not know exactly what state Fenris was in right now, but clearly it was not something that should be disturbed lightly.
"Did anyone notice you when you came here?"
"No. I came over quietly," Peter said with certainty.
"Then you should leave first."
As he spoke, Logan shut the door to Fenris's bedroom. Once he saw Peter disappear, he strode toward the front door.
"Who is it? Talk."
Logan barked out the question, his right fist already clenched tight.
"Ahem."
A male voice finally came from outside. It sounded like the speaker had to brace himself before saying, "We're from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We have business with Wolverine and the Lizard Monster."
"What division?"
Logan paused, wondering if he had heard that right.
Still, since the other side did not seem openly hostile, he cracked the door slightly, though his body remained firmly planted in the doorway.
Standing there was a middle-aged man who looked under forty, dressed in a neat suit and wearing a warm smile.
Further back, in the shadows behind him, stood a man who was practically hidden from sight.
"Strategic Homeland..."
Having finally gotten the door open, the man seemed to relax and prepared to repeat himself.
"Uh, bald freak, you don't need to talk yet."
Logan was very unhappy with the "Lizard Monster" label from earlier, so his opening shot landed like a punch. Coulson's smile nearly slipped.
"You're the one in charge, right?"
Logan's gaze locked precisely onto the bald man with the eyepatch standing in the shadows.
"There's no Wolverine here, and no... Lizard Monster either. You've got the wrong place, so get lost."
Fenris's condition was still unclear, and Logan had no patience for uninvited guests. After saying that with open irritation, he reached to shut the door.
"Wolverine Logan. Birth name James. Subjected to Stryker's body modification experiments and turned into a man of steel and bone..."
Nick Fury did not get angry. He simply continued listing Logan's information.
When he saw hesitation flicker across Logan's face, Fury abruptly changed tack.
"Did I get the wrong man, Wolverine?"
"...What do you want?"
Logan still stared fixedly at the two of them.
"Aren't you going to let us in first?"
Nick Fury stepped out of the shadows and walked up to Logan, lifting a foot to continue forward into the room.
It was a small trick. In negotiations, entering the other side's room often made them feel instinctively uneasy. Once their sense of security was weakened, Nick Fury could take the psychological upper hand without saying a word, gaining the advantage in the conversation.
It was a move that had worked for him countless times.
But obviously, Nick Fury had underestimated the hundred-year-old man standing before him.
More importantly, Logan was a beast. In many situations, he preferred talking with his claws rather than his mouth.
"Back off!"
Seeing that Nick Fury completely ignored his warning and was actually trying to shove past him into the room, a cold glint flashed through Logan's eyes.
Snikt!
His steel claws shot out, stopping less than an inch from Fury's eye.
"Listen. I don't have the patience to play these little games with you. Unless you want to start wearing an eyepatch over the other eye too, you'd better learn how to understand plain English."
Logan seized Fury by the collar and casually hurled him backward.
"Stop!"
Coulson cried out and rushed forward, quickly steadying Fury before he could fall.
"Are you all right?"
"How can you just attack someone like that?"
"That's a question you should ask him!"
Logan stood fast in the doorway without giving an inch. His claws gleamed with a chilling light. Just as the standoff was hardening into a deadlock, a young voice suddenly came from inside the room.
"Logan, what happened?"
"Aren't you..." Logan turned his head instinctively. He had not expected Fenris to come out so soon.
"It wasn't urgent anyway. Going back to the school would've worked just as well."
Fenris sounded a little resigned. Being inside the cocoon had felt far more comfortable than madly absorbing radiation in the reaction chamber back then.
If this egg-headed bastard had not personally shown up at his door, he truly would not have wanted to come out this early.
"You two show up without warning and immediately try to force your way into someone's room. That's a little rude, don't you think?"
Fenris seized the initiative the instant he opened his mouth, slapping the label on them first.
After opening the door fully, he finally got his first proper look at Nick Fury, the future director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
A bald head so dark it practically shone, a signature eyepatch, and a face that was objectively ordinary, yet somehow still gave off an unmistakably scheming, slippery vibe.
"So looks really do reflect character."
Fenris sighed inwardly.
"Are we really going to stand here and talk in the doorway?"
Nick Fury still wanted to get inside, pressing the issue stubbornly.
"What I'm about to say is top secret."
"If people can still overhear us while you're standing here, then I don't think there's much point in us continuing this conversation at all."
Fenris smiled faintly and tossed the point right back at him.
Nick Fury's expression stiffened.
"If you don't have anything worth saying, then goodbye."
Fenris did not want to waste even one more sentence on this man and moved to close the door without hesitation.
"The disturbance you caused on Liberty Island a few days ago was too big. A lot of people have already taken notice."
In front of the man standing before him, Nick Fury kept having the strange feeling that all his usual methods were useless. He had been half a step behind in momentum from the start, and now he could only give in and speak plainly.
Fenris's expression did not change as he asked, "So?"
That was the sort of problem Fury should be taking up with Professor X, not him.
"This world is very big. Beyond mutant conflicts, there are even more threats from other places, even from the universe itself."
"It's not just Magneto. Countless ambitious people are stirring at every moment, looking to shake the current order of the Earth. At a time like this, a new force is needed to keep them in check."
Fenris did not interrupt. He simply listened in silence.
After circling around with a whole lot of irrelevant buildup, Nick Fury finally arrived at the point.
"And the X-Men are not the only super-powered team."
"I've learned that you and Wolverine only joined the X-Men recently. So now, I want to invite you to join a new group, one directly supported by the government and far more comprehensive in its function."
"The Avengers."