Reed's head retracted back to its proper position, the movement unsettlingly fluid, like a snake curling into itself.
"Well, progress is… progress," he began, already turning toward a bank of monitors awash with data streams Fury didn't care to read. "We've stabilized the containment field beyond anything the old Hydra schematics managed, and I've reduced the feedback variance by 0.06 percent—"
"English," Fury cut in. "And the short version."
Ben Grimm rumbled a low chuckle from the corner. "Means it's less likely to blow up and fry us all."
"Less likely isn't good enough," Fury said flatly. His eye swept the lab—banks of cables feeding into a reinforced cylinder at the far end, SHIELD techs hovering nervously, and in the center, the faint, blue glow of the Tesseract itself bleeding through containment like light through water. "You told me last month we were close to portable output. Tell me you weren't just flappin' your jaw."
Reed's eyes lit with that mix of pride and irritation only geniuses seemed to manage. "We're close. But extracting controlled, sustained energy from an object that—if I might remind you—could be a remnant of pre-Big Bang cosmology isn't a weekend project, Director."
A sudden voice drifted in from behind the containment cylinder. "He means he's being cautious. Which is a good thing, unless you like your atoms scattered across the stratosphere."
Susan Storm stepped into view. She was honestly Fury's best bet at keeping Reed under control; the man was reckless, something that could be seen from their enhanced state, really. Who goes out to a cosmic energy cloud?
There were robots for such dangerous things, yet Reed Richard was as reckless as he was brilliant, something Fury could use, yet also feared. Because when Reed first talked about the potential power output of the Tesseract, he almost sounded excited by the danger.
That man was honestly a liability, but he was too useful, so Fury kept Susan around to keep an eye on him, not that it worked as well as he would have liked. She was too soft on her stretchy boyfriend.
"I would prefer if his caution extended to not just blowing up this building as well as the rest of the solar system; this is a SHIELD facility after all." Fury huffed, but knew that was too much to say.
"Director," Reed said sharply, trying to keep the conversation from spiraling. "We are making progress. But the kind of power you want—power to change the balance of the planet—will take more time if you don't allow me to test this out."
"REED!" Susan and Ben said as one.
"Dr Reed, the Tesseract is the energy source of the future. We are trying to use that energy, not the Tesseract itself. We don't know what it can do, but if it suddenly unleashes all its energy? You can try to use energy cells, but I want a stable output soon." Fury's voice was firm.
"Cutting corners with something like the Tesseract isn't an option," Susan said firmly before Fury could speak. "You push it too far, and there won't be anything left to defend."
Fury stepped closer, lowering his voice but making every word count. "Everything I'm doing is to make sure there's something left to defend, Ms. Storm. Albion, Asgard, Wakanda—right now they've got us outgunned a hundred to one. That gap keeps widening while you run diagnostics. I need results."
Reed hesitated, the weight of both voices pressing in from either side. Finally, he exhaled through his nose. "Fine. I'll find a middle path—accelerate without dismantling all safeguards."
Fury gave a short nod. "Two weeks. I want something I can hold in my hand and point at a target. And Richards…" He glanced at the faint blue glow beyond the containment field. "Don't make me regret trusting you with that thing."
The doors sealed shut behind him, leaving the lab in silence except for the faint hum of the Tesseract's containment field—a sound that, to Ben, always felt a little too much like a ticking clock.
Fury didn't bother with a goodbye. He took the datapad Reed had handed him, gave Ben Grimm a curt nod, and was already halfway down the corridor before the lab's reinforced doors sealed shut behind him.
He hated dealing with Richards — too much theory, not enough usable results. Hydra hadn't needed a decade of whiteboard scrawls and cosmic lectures to change the battlefield. They'd picked up a cube, pointed a gun, and started making craters in anything that didn't salute the skull logo. Brutal, simple, effective.
That was the kind of edge Earth was going to need.
The elevator ride dropped him thirty levels into the restricted wing of the complex. Armed guards saluted as he stepped off, biometric scanners humming quietly in the walls. This wasn't the science wing — this was where things got tested, measured, and pushed until they broke.
Maria Hill was already waiting for him at the blast doors, tablet in hand.
"Director," she said, falling in step beside him. "We've got two categories to show you today — original Hydra hardware, retrofitted with our new Tesseract-derived cells, and the next-generation designs built from scratch."
They passed through the final security gate and into the testing range — a cavernous underground chamber lined with reinforced panels and automated turrets, cameras tracking every angle. In the center, a team of SHIELD techs were loading a rifle that looked like it had been stolen from a museum display — all angular metal and awkward weight distribution, but with a new, sleek power cell slotting neatly into the back.
"This is the Mark I Hydra pulse rifle," Hill said, her tone professional but tinged with the barest edge of disdain. "They aren't half bad, built to German standards, very reliable, but useless without the energy cells."
Fury knew her disdain wasn't for the guns themselves, but for the people who made them. Many people had few good things to say about Hydra, yet none could dismiss the tech they had.
"Due to technological limits of their time, the guns have a multitude of problems, features we today would consider normal weren't even invented at the time, but the basics are solid, but again, the real genius is the energy system." Hill continued.
The firing operator took aim at a wall of composite armor — the kind rated to withstand modern tank rounds. The rifle discharged with a sharp, electric crack. A flash of blue light punched a neat hole the size of a dinner plate clean through the target, leaving nothing but glowing slag around the edges.
Fury stepped closer to inspect the smoldering hole. "Deadly, powerful for sure, any different with the new cell than the original?"
"Slightly, the guns themselves can't handle much change, too much they burn out, too little you get nothing, they did the best with what they had at the time, but as I said, rough around the edges." Hill explained.
"Good. What's next?"
A pair of techs wheeled out something far sleeker — matte-black composite housing, ergonomic grips, and glowing blue conduits running along the barrel.
"New SHIELD design," Hill said. "Based on the Hydra schematics, but lighter, modular, and compatible with standard field optics. Variable output settings — precision burst or continuous beam."
At her nod, the operator snapped the rifle into full-auto and swept across a drone rack. Every target drone disintegrated mid-air before they'd cleared their launchers, reduced to curling scraps of molten metal.
"Range?" Fury asked.
"Operational beyond two kilometers," Hill said. "Portable power cell gives forty shots at maximum output, triple that at burst fire."
"And if you don't feel like carrying one yourself…"
She gestured, and two agents rolled forward a shoulder-mounted cannon, heavy enough to need its own stand. The operator keyed it in, sighted on a derelict APC at the far end of the range, and fired. The vehicle split in half like it had been cleaved by an invisible blade, the two halves collapsing sideways in a plume of smoke and glowing embers.
Fury didn't smile, but his voice lost some of its usual gravel. "Now that's more like it."
Hill glanced at her tablet. "We've got a dozen working cells right now. Manufacturing more will take time, we aren't taking the same chances as Hydra did, so the cube is with Richard for most of the time, but we expect to begin full production within the year, and before then, more working prototypes for field testing."
Fury lingered just long enough to watch the techs wheel the cannon back into storage. The glow of the Tesseract cells was steady, pulsing like a heartbeat. A dangerous heartbeat.
This was the edge he needed.
Not diplomacy. Not promises. Not hoping the next god or mutant to show up on Earth came in peace.
The only thing that ever kept predators away was knowing the prey could bite back. And if Richards, Hill, and the rest of SHIELD could make enough of these, then maybe—just maybe—Earth wouldn't be the smallest dog in the fight anymore.
But even that wasn't good enough, he knew that. He had seen the Kree fleet that Carol dealt with, something that size? This just wanted enough.
They needed truly large-scale weapons, and the ability to deploy them at range and quickly. Thankfully, they were already working on an idea.
It had originally been years off even being approved, much less put into full production.
But with the situation as it looks now? With new threats from both within and from outside of Earth, there was a greater need than ever for control.
He knew well that he couldn't control threats from beyond Earth, not until Earth was ready to enter the intersolar state, and they weren't.
They could barely reach the moon, much less other planets, and while SHIELD had the ability to make advanced spaceships thanks to intel from the Skrulls and Kree, it wasn't enough.
So for now, the goal was clear: arm Earth, make use of the protection offered by Asgard, and get control over threats on Earth, mutants, mad enhanced, power-hungry dictators, and cruel terrorists.
For that, the Insight Project was key.
With that, they would control the skies and be able to eliminate threats the moment they appeared, or even before that if some of the claims were true.
There was but a single problem, the Hellcarriers were powerful, armed to the teeth, and nearly impossible to shoot down, at least that was the plan.
But there was one weapon, one that could bring them down and one they couldn't defend against, something that would make this trillion-dollar project worthless and pointless.
The same mysterious pillar of light that Natasha claimed came from Arthuria's lance. Without the ability to defend against that, Project Insight would have a critical weakness and counter.
It had seemed hopeless, right up until Wakanda had been exposed, and with them, the tech Fury desperately needed, energy shields.
If he could get that technology and Stark's reactor tech to run them, then the Insight carriers would be invincible, unbeatable offence and defence, and have enough energy to the point they never had to land or refuel.
He still needed a few key pieces of technology to be in place, but he could see it, see the future where SHIELD could truly live up to its name, and protect the entire world.
And once that was done, then he could look to the stars, and SHIELD Earth from the threats from there, at which point they wouldn't need to bow to some clown like Loki, or rely on Asgard's so-called protection, but a future where Earth could stand alone and proud.