Chapter 1655: Hiring People, Divvying Things Up, and Taking What You Need

At that time, she couldnt help but ask Luke what the dead directors level was.

The bigshot smiled amiably and said off-handedly, That one? Of course, hes a very important partner.

The female agent had almost laughed out loud.

When Nick Fury had first given her Life 1, he said that he had an extraordinary relations.h.i.+p with this bigshot and could get a lot of good things.

This was what he meant by extraordinary?

In fact, Lukes partners.h.i.+p system was even easier than Natasha thought.

There were only two levels, friendly and important, which represented teammates and not teammates respectively.

Even though Nick Fury was much more important than a regular business partner, Luke didnt trust him, so he could only be an important partner.

The final strategic level was completely a con.

There were only two people at this level: One was Lukes alias, and the other was Iron Man, this human tech-making machine.

If Luke wanted a horse to run, he had to feed it more gra.s.s.

If he didnt fuel a certain machine, how could he produce new products quickly?

Luke had to find an excuse to supply Tony with all sorts of technology.

In any case, he had the list of his teammates abilities. He felt uncomfortable if he didnt refresh it every few days.

He had always planned to rope in Natasha.

But like with Black Egg, it was best to have a business relations.h.i.+p with people from s.h.i.+ELD.

It was very hard for them to pa.s.s the systems teammate a.s.sessment.

After all, it was much harder to con an elite agent than to con a newbie whom he had groomed himself.

Natasha could be considered half an exception because she was a woman.

Luke was always a little more rea.s.sured with women.

Besides, Natasha was Nick Furys direct subordinate, but now that s.h.i.+ELD was basically done for, her relations.h.i.+p with Nick Fury no longer existed.

In the future, she and Nick Fury would at most have a bigger foundation of trust and cooperation than with everyone else.

In a situation like this, Luke felt that he could step in.

Since it was work and for justice, he offered a higher price. He didnt believe that Natasha would refuse.

She now owed the bigshot 1,000 credit points. In the future, she would have to buy other equipment with credit points.

She wasnt a teammate, so she would have to pay several times the normal price.

If she really wasnt willing, she wouldnt have agreed to a credit transaction. Instead, she wouldve taken off the suit and thrown it in Lukes face.

Well, that was an exaggeration.

But Natasha paid more attention to practical matters when she did things, and she was willing to maintain a distant relations.h.i.+p with the bigshot.

Luke was delighted.

It wasnt easy to find a top-notch expert at gathering intelligence.

This sort of person was a master at playing both sides and supplying their employer with half-truths.

He wouldnt have such concerns if he bought information from Natasha.

With just a small amount of resources, he had been able to hire the famous Black Widow.

After Luke sorted out matters with the Black Widow, another person secretly contacted Batman.

It was Phil.

Nick Fury hadnt taken Phil with him, but had left him in America to carry on s.h.i.+ELDs work.

Phil was now the new director of s.h.i.+ELD.

Chatting idly on the yacht, Luke was pretty astonished. Youre the director?

Phil still had that same amiable smile. Although Im far less capable, who else can do it?

Lukes expression was indifferent, but he mumbled to himself,

Black Egg was turned into Swiss cheese as the director before he could escape. With your personality, wouldnt you be crippled in a few days if you become the director?

Wait, Black Egg was a one-eyed creature without any hair.

Luke couldnt help but look at Phils hairline and felt that it was receding at a visible rate.

Phil didnt know that Batman was actually pondering these ridiculous things. He simply made his request. Im hoping for some a.s.sistance.

Tell me. Luke listened attentively.

He didnt wonder why Phil didnt look for the bigshot.

This uncle of his might feel that he was beneath the bigshots notice, so he might as well look for Batman as a supplier.

After talking for half a day, Luke and Phil finalized their cooperation.

Luke would provide funding, equipment, equipment, intelligence, military force, and so on basically almost everything for the new s.h.i.+ELD that Phil was putting together

Phil, on the other hand, needed to provide intelligence and tech to help Luke lock onto various targets Hydra and supervillains.

It looked like Luke was getting the short end of this deal, but there was a limit to how much support he could give, and he got priority in any deals Phil wanted to make.

Unless it was an emergency, Phil had to tell Batman things related to the latters interest and let him decide if he wanted to make a deal.

Only if Batman didnt want it could Phil offer it to someone else.

Of course, when Phil asked, Luke would answer on the spot, so as not to delay things.

Phil settled everything and soon left.

There were too many things to do with the new s.h.i.+ELD, and he was very busy.

If he didnt have to confirm his trump cards in advance, Phil might not have come to see Batman.

Watching Phil leave in a hurry, Luke shook his head and chuckled. Hydra is really a professional troublemaker.

It had already been half a month since Project Insight, dubbed by American government insiders as the D.C. incident, but everybody was busy.

Cleaning up Hydra was only one part of the job, and Luke was very enthusiastic about it.

Divvying up s.h.i.+ELD was another important task, and that was what Phil and Tony were doing.

Phil was pulling people in and gathering resources, and so was Tony.

At that moment, in Stark Tower, Maria Hill was wearing a gray and black dress as she was being interviewed by a HR manager.

She knew very well that her employment at Stark Industries actually had nothing to do with this HR manager, but she kept smiling and went through the motions.

Compared with Steve, who was super good at fighting, and Natasha, who was a top spy, Hill, who mainly dealt with administrative matters, couldnt really disappear.

So, Nick Fury sent her to Tony.

The tyc.o.o.n had enough power to protect this person, and the Avengers also now had another capable individuals.

s.h.i.+ELD had collapsed, but the Avengers hadnt.

From the very beginning, the Avengers had been a small team of superheroes.

Previously, Nick Fury had wanted s.h.i.+ELD to lead the team, while Tony, this arrogant guy, refused to work under s.h.i.+ELD, so simply became half a consultant of sorts.

Now that s.h.i.+ELD had been turned inside out, the other superheroes didnt possess anything to build up or keep a team going, like funds, a base, equipment, and connections Tony was the only one who could.

It thus made sense for the tyc.o.o.n to become the leader of the Avengers.

As a talented person who had overcome many trials, Hill would look like an employee of Stark Industries on the surface, but would be an administrative member of the Avengers in private.

Luke had also been interested in her, but Nick Fury sent her to Tony.

It wouldnt be a big deal if Luke had poached her first; the tyc.o.o.n would definitely be embarra.s.sed to fight Luke over it.

But since she was now working for the tyc.o.o.n, it was inappropriate for Luke to say anything.

Fortunately, Luke just so happened to obtain half the Black Widow and half of Phil, and he was pretty satisfied.