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

At that time, she couldn’t help but ask Luke what the dead director’s level was.

The bigshot smiled amiably and said off-handedly, “That one? Of course, he’s 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 relationship with this bigshot and could get a lot of good things.

This was what he meant by “extraordinary”?

In fact, Luke’s partnership 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 didn’t 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 Luke’s 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 grass.

If he didn’t “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 teammate’s abilities. He felt uncomfortable if he didn’t 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 relationship with people from SHIELD.

It was very hard for them to pass the system’s teammate assessment.

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 reassured with women.

Besides, Natasha was Nick Fury’s direct subordinate, but now that SHIELD was basically done for, her relationship 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 didn’t 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 wasn’t a teammate, so she would have to pay several times the normal price.

If she really wasn’t willing, she wouldn’t have agreed to a credit transaction. Instead, she would’ve taken off the suit and thrown it in Luke’s 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 relationship with the bigshot.

Luke was delighted.

It wasn’t 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 wouldn’t 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 hadn’t taken Phil with him, but had left him in America to carry on SHIELD’s work.

Phil was now the new director of SHIELD.

Chatting idly on the yacht, Luke was pretty astonished. “You’re… the director?”

Phil still had that same amiable smile. “Although I’m far less capable, who else can do it?”

Luke’s 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, wouldn’t you be crippled in a few days if you become the director?

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

Luke couldn’t help but look at Phil’s hairline and felt that it was receding at a visible rate.

Phil didn’t know that Batman was actually pondering these ridiculous things. He simply made his request. “I’m hoping for some assistance.”

“Tell me.” Luke listened attentively.

He didn’t wonder why Phil didn’t look for the bigshot.

This uncle of his might feel that he was beneath the bigshot’s 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 SHIELD” 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 latter’s interest and let him decide if he wanted to make a deal.

Only if Batman didn’t 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 SHIELD, and he was very busy.

If he didn’t 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 SHIELD 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, couldn’t really disappear.

So, Nick Fury sent her to Tony.

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

SHIELD had collapsed, but the Avengers hadn’t.

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

Previously, Nick Fury had wanted SHIELD to lead the team, while Tony, this arrogant guy, refused to work under SHIELD, so simply became half a “consultant” of sorts.

Now that SHIELD had been turned inside out, the other superheroes didn’t 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 tycoon 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 wouldn’t be a big deal if Luke had poached her first; the tycoon would definitely be embarrassed to fight Luke over it.

But since she was now working for the tycoon, 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.

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