Nick Fury didn't like the current situation, not one bit. Sure, compared to just a month or two ago things seemed far calmer right now, but he didn't believe things had truly calmed down.
No, he believed that he and SHIELD were simply not in the loop about what was happening. Something that didn't sit well with him, but he also didn't have any clear way to solve the problem.
This calm did not mean that he had nothing to do at all; the silent actions of the Bulwark were still enough to cause him problems.
Just the fact that they still possessed what was nothing less than a massive private fleet was giving him a headache; after all, if they stayed in international waters, no nations really had much of a right to anything, but that didn't matter.
No one wanted this fleet to be out there, yet they couldn't use laws to do anything, and it was really bad PR to start a fight, not to mention even the US Navy would have to pay a huge price if they wanted to deal with them.
Since every nation seemed to be of one mind of this, it somehow fell on him to solve it. Yet he didn't want to get in a conflict with Bulwark himself, at least not yet.
They knew very little about them, and while he had managed to get some information out of one of their overseers, that only strengthened his resolve to not do anything to them before SHIELD was ready to take over their mission.
He simply couldn't allow those monsters and objects they kept locked away to escape in any chaos that might come around due to their fall. So first, he had to ensure he could take over their job.
Though as soon as he was ready, he definitely wanted to take them down, he couldn't trust anyone else with keeping the world safe, not to mention he couldn't trust anyone else to have possession of monsters and objects like that without using them.
Still, he hadn't been just sitting around doing nothing since the last big emergency; after all, the world was in flux, with many matters that required his attention.
For one, they still had those monster eggs. He was still fearful that someone, Bulwark, would find out and attack to steal them, but for now, he had managed to keep it under wraps.
However, that did come at a cost, and he couldn't move too many resources to their study without risking alerting possible spies.
Truthfully, he suspected that Romanoff might still be compromised, but so far, his tests for loyalty had been inconclusive, and given the way things were headed, he couldn't afford to get rid of her like that.
So he would continue to trust her, use her, and test her. Normally he wouldn't give someone so much breathing room, but he just needed people on her level, not to mention that Barton likely wouldn't be pleased if he got rid of her without proper cause.
Still the eggs, they were hard to break, and expensive to keep. They had already suffered one accident due to someone decided to cut costs by not cooling the eggs down properly.
The monsters were of little use. They truly were just dangerous monsters that shouldn't exist. The only thing he truly wanted to know about them was how to fully get rid of them and who the hell made them in the first place.
The Bulwark had shared what little they had, or at least what little they pretended to have, but even without them, he could figure out that these things were clearly made artificially.
The question, however, is by who, why they did it, and how they managed it.
Even with plenty of samples available, the best people he could find still had no clue how it could be possible to make DNA like that, much less to make creatures like the monsters.
This seemed to hint at people out there with abilities and resources that most people couldn't even dream of, and they were using that to make monsters to replace humanity itself.
With many other objects and monsters kept by Bulwark, the question remained of just how many people and groups out there were making dangerous monsters and objects.
He had always prided himself on being one step ahead of everyone, yet now he found himself completely behind everyone.
However, his ability to deal with these things was limited. His dream of Project Avenger wasn't looking too good, and he didn't have many options.
Stark and his new suit were definitely able to make the cut if it wasn't because Tony wasn't someone he could order around; from his meeting with the man, he doubted he was willing to join unless the world was about to end.
And while it was at least reassuring to know that he could count on him in a real crisis, he wanted the Avengers to be more than just that, not only the last resort but a team he could send in to avoid things becoming that dire.
Bruce Banner was still gone. Hopefully, he was in some cell at Bulwark and not in the hands of the Chaos Insurgency. While he would prefer to have Banner somewhere he could watch and reach, at least it seemed that Bulwark was more likely to just lock him up to collect dust and then try and make their own Hulks or unleash him somewhere.
He wasn't sure what had happened to Hank Pym, it was likely one of those two groups had picked him up, and since it did seem like he left freely, it was likely also Bulwark. And given that it seemed someone had stepped in to buy out his company it seemed that however held him, was working closely with him.
Now, Fury had never believed he could make use of Pym and his technology. That man didn't like SHIELD at all, but he had some hope still that maybe he would pass on the touch to someone else who was less guarded.
This left him with very few options for good candidates other than Barton and Romanoff, who were both skilled but lacked the firepower of either Stark or Banner. They could act as support, but he was without any frontline at all.
Currently, he only had a few cards up his sleeve, and none of them felt like enough. Sure, if he called Danvers, she could deal with any problem, but she likely wouldn't want to come running every time he needed her.
He expected that unless it were truly the end of the world, she wouldn't come around a second time. Which meant that she was a last resort, but he still had no tools to help avoid situations becoming that dire.
Project Insight had potential, yet it also had a few limitations. For one the price of it, each hellcarrier was immensely expensive, and while they had plenty of firepower, they were also far from invincible.
Should they be taken down, it would take a long time and a great cost to replace even one, so he was worried that if he used them, his enemies hidden in the dark might be able to take them down.
Allowing them to be a one-time tool, for which they were far too expensive.
Sure, the AI problem meant to identify threats might allow them to find and eliminate enemies hidden in the dark, but he was doubtful.
After all, he hadn't known about massive organizations with entire fleets under their control all this time, so what was the chance that he could find all the smaller hidden enemies?
Not to mention that he couldn't just fire at anything he might think is a threat; if he did that, then SHIELD would get shut down faster than he could say his own damn name.
No, his real hope was in the tesseract. That cube of infinite energy had allowed Hydra to make powerful energy weapons decades ago. If they manage to harness that power today and then combine it with modern technology, they should be able to make some truly powerful weapons.
If he could somehow combine that firepower with Stark's suits, he could make his own elite team that was more than able to become the Avengers.
Sure, getting the tech from Stark wouldn't be easy, but the hardest part was still the energy core. The rest of his own men should be able to figure out, and if they could use the cube to make their own energy core technology, then they wouldn't need to deal with Stark.
Yet, using the cube clearly came with a major risk. One he felt all the more clearly as he looked at the Bulwark file in front of him.
[Object of interest: 13121.
Alias: Tesseract.
Description: A powerful energy source of unknown origin, suspected to be of alien origin. The Tesseract has demonstrated the ability to generate near-limitless energy, capable of being weaponized, as evidenced by its use by HYDRA during World War II. Object exhibits anomalous properties, including the potential to create portals and manipulate space-time.
Special note: the object is highly valuable, yet also highly dangerous, infinite energy has infinite potential, also for infinite destruction. It is theorized that it holds the ability to reduce the entire Earth to atoms. As such, it is highly important the object is secured.
Location: After the failure of taking it from Hydra, it was lost for a number of years before resurfacing at the agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. However, following the Alien crisis of 1995, it was lost once again.]
Clearly even Bulwark knew about the cube, and they wanted it, which meant using it carried the risk of alerting them. yet even then, he had to push forward, but he did have to be very very careful. Something that would slow any research down.