8mi Chapter 211 Insider
Chapter 211 Insider
Chapter 211 Insider
While Coulson was happily heading to the hangar in the medical bay, preparing to notify the members who couldn't be reached through conventional means, Tony in the medical bay had already begun going through the personnel roster with Joey.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. really should upgrade their internal network."
Through the connection between the medical equipment inside the house and the intranet, Tony easily accessed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database and obtained information about almost all the Avengers by following the database's recent access records.
The list included potential recruits and preliminary shortlisted candidates. Most of them were familiar to Joey, but almost all were new to Tony.
"Sandman? What's that? Luke Cage, I don't recognize it—"
"Peter Parker? Is it the Peter Parker I know? The one in our universe seems to be a minor, right? But the child labor law still doesn't apply to S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Superman, Joey Joseph Kent, nothing else. You're quite the enigma to everyone, Joey."
"Iron Man, this is me...tsk! Once I take control of S.H.I.E.L.D. from within, I'm going to start writing this report."
"Dr. Banner? So he's the Hulk? I even cited one of his papers back in the day!"
"Thor? You mean that big, blond medieval guy with the hammer and spear? Does he know he's been added to the Avengers?"
"Captain America, Steve Rogers? What use is this kind of old popsicle from the last century?!"
"Former CCP super agent Natasha Romanov blah blah blah... Why are Russian names so hard to pronounce?"
"Hawkeye Clint Barton, an ordinary guy, just a good archer? Seriously? What use would he be to my team? To provoke Galactus by shooting a plunger right in the head?"
Joey, who was sitting in a chair using her newly bought phone to play Fruit Ninja, casually turned down the screen brightness a bit:
"That's not how you say it."
He had remained silent out of the ordinary, but he couldn't help but chuckle when he heard Tony's words.
All I can say is that Tony Stark truly lives up to his reputation as the most difficult Avenger to work with.
"The Avengers are still in the works, and Tony is already treating them as his team."
Perhaps Galactus's visit made Tony feel a sense of urgency, causing him to become much more "pragmatic" than before.
But the Avengers are, after all, a team that must work together, and it would be unwise to be so harsh on a completely unknown new member.
"Superpowers are an aid to becoming a superhero, not the essence of it."
In the past sixteen years, Joey has probably seen more people with superpowers who live the lives of genuine bastards than Tony has ever slept with female celebrities, and they are still a long way from being called "superheroes".
Therefore, Joey believes he has some right to speak on this matter:
"What truly determines whether an ordinary person can become a superhero is whether they can maintain a heart of gold."
"Okay, okay~ I was just saying, I didn't mean anything by it, so stop telling me about the Golden Spirit."
Tony, whose value had been immediately questioned, quickly begged for mercy, while continuing to flip through the documents:
"I must say, Patton's resume is quite impressive."
"That's natural. For an ordinary person to be compared to a superpowered individual, they naturally have to put in far more extraordinary effort."
When this topic came up, Joey suddenly thought of an ordinary person: "For example, I have an ordinary friend who, although he is dark-hearted, petty, and vengeful, and wary of his friends like thieves, has a heart that is always willing to sacrifice himself for others."
This is what drove him to become the world's most powerful superhero, detective, fighter, strategist, and master of stealth—"
"Stop for a second," Tony said, gesturing to stop Joey's rambling. "I have a question to ask!"
Joey, interrupted by Tony, prepared to continue playing on her phone, and casually lowered the automatically increased screen brightness a bit:
"If you don't want to hear it, then forget it. This story is really far-fetched; most people wouldn't believe it if they heard it."
Tony will have plenty of opportunities to meet the bat in person in the future, and he'll find out then.
"No, I mean, that ordinary superhero friend you mentioned—is he dressed all in black, masked, with only the lower half of his face showing, and looking extremely unhappy?"
Tony placed his hands on either side of his head, extending one finger from each side and hooking them together: "And the tops of your head are pointed?"
"That's a pretty vivid description, but how did you know that?"
After quickly going through his memories, Joey was certain that Tony in the watchtower had only interacted with him and Cyborg, and had not met Batman, who was busy with family matters.
Tony tried to wink at Joey, who was engrossed in cutting fruit, but the crisscrossing scars on his face made him feel a sharp pain, so he had to give up.
Only then did Joey belatedly open his eyes and glance behind him, immediately exclaiming in fury, "WTF! How the hell did you, a bat, fly in here?!"
"There's no need to fly."
Batman, who had been silently standing behind Joey for a long time, walked up to Joey. Without the shadow covering him, the phone, which had been automatically dimming its screen brightness, finally returned to its original brightness.
As for Batman, he's just an ordinary person and of course can't fly: "This aircraft carrier landed in Washington half an hour ago."
"What does this have to do with flying? I mean, how the hell did you get in here?"
Joey's use of the title "Master of Stealth" was just empty flattery; he genuinely didn't believe that this bat could just appear out of thin air behind him.
When did Batman arrive?
"I was already standing behind you around the exact moment you started talking about your dark side and how you hold grudges."
After bluntly exposing Joey's true colors, Batman casually leaned against the wall: "Next time, remember to check your own back before you talk badly about others."
"Tell me first, how did you know I was here?"
After reviewing his memories of the past few days, Joey pulled out the lead box containing kryptonite from his belt: "Is there a tracking device inside this thing?"
This question, which could be described as a brain short circuit, made Batman wonder if his presence within 500 yards of Superman really had an inhibitory effect on this Kryptonian's intelligence:
"Think about it carefully. The most basic physics principle is that lead can shield against most radiation."
The tracker placed in that lead box could not transmit a stable signal.
"However, the main reason I was able to track you down was because of what was in there."
That kryptonite ring was a super-enhanced version specially made for Batman; its radiation was so strong that a layer of lead could not completely shield it.
After giving Iron Man a discreet glance, Batman skipped the part about Kryptonite and only offered a vague explanation:
"That thing's radiation spectrum is unique in the world."
Kryptonite doesn't exist in this universe. To find Joey, just track the only source of Kryptonite radiation on Earth.
"Why you? Where's Xinghuo?"
Joey asked this question only after his gaze swept across New York City and confirmed that Spark had not returned.
He remembered that a few days ago, the energy of the Starfire Lamp Ring was completely depleted by the Molen family of the Heirs, forcing it to return to the other side of the universe to recharge.
Calculating the time ratio between the two worlds, it will take about ten minutes to fully recharge, and returning to this universe should be around now.
Why is it Batman who came?
To be honest, even if Bruce came, it wouldn't make a difference. Joey can't exactly expect Batman to shoot down the Destroyer of Heaven, Galactus, with a dart, can he?
Fortunately, Joey only thought about it in his mind; otherwise, if he had said it aloud, Tony, who had just been given a lecture, would definitely have seized the opportunity to criticize him.
Boom boom boom!
A knock sounded at the door, and the two doctors who had been asked to leave by Coulson, Fitz and Simmons, who looked like a young couple, hurriedly returned, pushed open the door, and looked at the two people inside:
"Mr. Stark, are you alright?"
They were there to check on Tony's condition: "Your vital signs monitoring system has detected that your heart rate is rising too fast."
S.H.I.E.L.D. places great importance on this son of the late Howard Stark, a founding member of the agency, especially after he demonstrated remarkable intelligence.
Stark's eyes darted around, and in order to quickly get rid of these two meddlesome agents, he immediately made a significant sacrifice:
"I'm fine. I was just—uh—looking at Playboy magazine, picking out the cover girl for next month's bed partner."
"Oh~"
Fitz and Simmons had only recently graduated from the Secret Service, and they were far too young to be as shameless as Tony.
Realizing that Tony's rapid heartbeat was due to microcephaly, and unable to bear the embarrassing situation, the two young agents blushed and retreated.
"Excuse me!"
With a click, the door closed, leaving only Joey, who was trying harder to suppress his laughter than Hercules, and Tony, who was forced to "die" for the first time and had a dark expression.
Ripples spread through the air like water, and the third person who had just disappeared—Batman, who had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.—reappeared after exiting camouflage mode.
"Wow, so there's a Playboy in this universe too."
Based on Tony's hastily fabricated reason and Cyborg's few words of description, Batman, who has spent his entire life posing as a Gotham rich kid, already knows roughly what kind of person Tony is:
"I must say, that was indeed an impeccable reason."
At this moment, Iron Man's gaze was completely drawn to Batman's perfect optical invisibility: "How did your suit achieve such perfect invisibility?"
Joey meticulously scanned Batman's entire body three times, but despite not being able to discern anything due to the lead-plated interlayer, he still managed to identify what Batman's outer suit was.
The Inside Man Armor, a tactical support armor created by Batman, can flexibly switch between different combat modes.
These modes are basically imitations of other members of the Justice League—heat vision mode, truth mode, willpower mode—Joey has always been curious whether Batman has created a "talk to fish mode."
The invisibility he just displayed was clearly a superpower derived from Martian Manhunter.
"You came wearing Insider armor?"
Seeing that Batman hadn't arrived in this world empty-handed, but rather armed to the teeth, Joey immediately sensed something was wrong:
"How bad can the situation be? Is the watchtower still standing?"