In the Marvel Universe: I can summon items from all dimensions.

Then, Natasha took out a phone and pointed the camera at Mason. Within two seconds, a notification sound came out saying "Authorized as Level 4 Agent Cecil Lee Mason," which seemed to be a technology like facial recognition. She also pulled up his medical records at the same time.

Next, she used another system to investigate Lorna. Mason personally suspected that she might have directly texted the X-Men to ask if such a person existed. However, the results came out quickly and were probably optimistic, because Natasha's gaze towards the two of them finally showed less suspicion.

But the underlying sense of frustration seems even more intense.

I got beaten up for no reason and couldn't fight back. I'm so angry.

"Mason."

After calming herself down, Natasha stepped forward and said to the two women, "And Miss Dane, please come with me. The headquarters' medical center will provide you with better medical services, but in return, please describe to us in detail what happened before."

He was mainly looking at Lorna while speaking, as if Mei was just an extra bonus.

That's true. After all, in terms of rank, it's not just speaking in such a friendly manner in every sense of the word, but even ordering me to be a filler is within my authority. It's already quite generous of me to even mention my name.

Although he wasn't particularly loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., Mason adopted a workaholic attitude, but his core mentality had absolutely nothing to do with being cowardly.

As the saying goes, times have changed. After acquiring the Beast Bodyguard, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra were no longer so scary in his eyes. Instead, he needed to use the vaults of these two organizations to swindle... no, find the money owed to the Yapool.

In just a few hours, his mindset was successfully reversed—so strength is a good thing, right?

Once he figures out the mechanism of his self-healing ability, he might become even more unrestrained.

Even now, he feels his吐槽 (tu cao, a Chinese internet slang term for sarcastic or critical) spirit is stirring.

After holding back for a few seconds, he finally gave up resisting, coughed, and said, "Um... sir, would you like to sit down and talk? You look a bit off."

These words, once spoken, made Natasha stand at attention like a middle-aged man being mocked by a little devil for being unreliable—though it clearly aggravated her back injury, making her face pale, she still said with great defiance, "This little injury is no problem for me at all!"

Lorna finally couldn't hold back any longer and immediately shuffled over, suppressing her embarrassment and shame.

"I'm so sorry, I'm really sorry. I launched the attack without understanding the situation."

Her attitude was so subservient that Mason suspected that if she were Japanese, she would probably have performed a full-blown prostration to express her sincerity.

Natasha closed her eyes and sighed, "...Don't worry about it too much."

By common sense, she was already quite old, and couldn't bring herself to argue with a young woman. What truly troubled her was something else entirely—

Suddenly, a large number of heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor.

Within two seconds, a large squad of heavily armed agents appeared at the ward door with all sorts of weapons. Mason immediately recognized the leader as Clint Barton, the actor who played Hawkeye in the movie version of the Avengers.

"Natasha! What happened...?"

Clint tumbled into the ward, carrying a shortbow with an arrow nocked, only to be immediately bewildered by the strange atmosphere inside.

"Put down your weapon, Clint."

Natasha pursed her lips and waved her hand: "The alarm just now was... accidentally triggered, that's right, accidentally triggered."

The problem lies here.

Calling for help when encountering problems is a basic skill for group missions, so the moment Natasha was lifted up by Lorna, she sent Clint the message "I've been attacked by superhumans," only to realize before the reinforcements arrived that it was actually a false alarm—which was quite embarrassing.

As we all know, the line between a hero and a fool is actually very subtle. For example, being blown up is a completely different matter than rushing towards a bomb to protect your comrades and throwing a cigarette butt into an armory. It's not that being in a miserable situation will necessarily evoke sympathy—if the news of being caught off guard and killed instantly gets out, you'll probably become a laughing stock in S.H.I.E.L.D. for all time.

"what?"

Clint hesitated for a moment before putting the arrow back in the quiver, then scratched his head. "Then why are you sweating so much?"

"Crawling through ventilation ducts is exhausting!"

"And what about this waist...?"

"I twisted my ankle while turning!"

"Really...really?"

"..."

Natasha gritted her teeth, glanced at Mason and Lorna out of the corner of her eye, and then, with some unclear resolve, said to Clint, "If you dare to laugh after hearing this, I'll kill you."

Clint: "?"

Natasha then gave him a brief explanation of what had just happened, staring at him with a deep, unfathomable gaze throughout, making it difficult to discern whether it was a threat or a simple declaration of death.

As a result, Clint's shoulders and face trembled slightly. Although he didn't dare to make any obvious changes in expression under Natasha's gaze, Mason was willing to use a meme to describe his current state.

Dali Wang trying not to laugh.gif

The agents outside the door had their faces hidden by tactical masks, so their expressions couldn't be seen. But judging from their own experience, Mason figured they probably spread the embarrassing jokes about their superiors behind their backs—like how Wolfman was always knocked out by Magneto in one hit. Even if no one said it outright, did the X-Men really not have such amusement circulating within their ranks? Probably not.

He sighed, turned his head to look at Lorna, but just as he was about to say something, she spoke first, her head bowed.

"Are you with S.H.I.E.L.D."

That's right.

"..."

"You're not thinking I'm some kind of agent who deliberately tried to get close to you, are you...?" Mason rolled his eyes. "My salary isn't enough to make me break my leg for this kind of pointless mission—"

Clint and Natasha suddenly looked at him simultaneously.

Mason was naturally indifferent. You see, even during the Cold War, America's intelligence department didn't have any religious requirements when hiring people. As long as you sat at your desk and approved a couple of documents every day to make up for the salary you received, that was enough. Surely no organization would really require you to have any moral integrity in this line of work?

So he continued without any hesitation: "I didn't even ask you what your relationship is with the X-Men, so why should I be looked at like that by you?"

Although she wasn't actually looking at anyone right now.

Perhaps intimidated by Mason's imposing manner, Lorna hesitated for a moment before apologizing to him as well.

...Girl, what kind of persona do you have?

Mason scratched his head and changed the subject: "But now I do have a question for you—didn't I already tell you the crisis was over? Why did things turn out like this?"

"..." Upon hearing this, her head drooped even more listlessly. "Because I'm a mutant?"

"...Next, we'll be giving a statement. Don't you have a more plausible reason?"

"Because I'm a mutant?"

"I'm not joking...and why is it a question?"

"...Because I'm a mutant?"

"Are you a broken record?! This is the third time already!"

"No..." Lorna shook her head. "I'm serious. My mutant ability makes me mentally unstable. Just now... I was in the midst of an outburst, and I lost control a bit."

Upon hearing this, Mason didn't react much, after all, he already knew that she had some mental issues (literally), but Natasha and Clint, who were not far away, couldn't help but lean back tactically and then look at each other in bewilderment.