Pierce stormed into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base with a face as black as thunder.
He had never expected the assassination to fail. He had taken the threat of Nick Fury extremely seriously, sending an entire squad of killers, deploying every weapon at his disposal, and even waking the long-frozen Winter Soldier.
Yet Fury had still slipped away.
When the car—bombed to hell yet barely scratched on its outer frame—was finally brought before him, Pierce realized just how much money that one-eyed bastard had embezzled.
Damn it!
Even a tank wasn't built this tough.
But right now Pierce had no time to dwell on petty budget issues. His assassination plan had collapsed. Not only had Nick Fury survived, he had been rescued by Green Goblin Harry Osborn, and the Winter Soldier had fallen into the hands of the Osborn Group.
This string of sudden disasters left Pierce in a cold sweat.
If Nick Fury made it back to S.H.I.E.L.D., everything would change.
He knew his former subordinate too well. After surviving an assassination attempt, Fury would immediately suspect a mole inside the organization. It was entirely possible the man would trace the trail straight to him.
He had to act fast—before Nick Fury could contact S.H.I.E.L.D.
Pierce marched in with a full team, drawing every eye in the base.
Deputy Director Hill, assuming he was here to see Nick Fury, stepped forward at once.
"Director Pierce, the director isn't here right now."
"I know he isn't."
Pierce remained calm and steady. His cold gaze swept across every agent present. Even though he had retired, his reputation within S.H.I.E.L.D. was still immense.
Most of the agents here were Hydra anyway and already answered to him. Besides, he had only stepped down and handed the director's seat to Nick Fury a few years ago. The genuine S.H.I.E.L.D. agents still treated him with respect.
"There won't be a Nick Fury anymore, Agent Hill."
He shook his head coldly.
"What?" Hill froze.
Without waiting for her to react, Pierce handed her a file and continued speaking. "Nick Fury has been confirmed as a high-ranking Hydra operative."
"That's impossible!"
Coulson's face filled with shock.
Pierce sighed with feigned regret. "If I could avoid believing it, I would. After all, I was the one who personally promoted Nick Fury to director. Who could have guessed he was hiding so deep?"
His words sounded sincere, but agents like Coulson—who were part of Fury's inner circle—found it extremely hard to accept.
"I have conclusive evidence." Pierce did not elaborate. He simply gestured at the documents in Hill's hands.
The file was a careful mix of truth and lies, but most of it was real.
Almost every page detailed the secret, unsanctioned research projects Nick Fury had been running behind everyone's back.
That black one-eyed bastard had thought his moves were perfectly hidden. In an organization where eighty or ninety percent of the personnel were Hydra, how much could he really hide?
In truth, from the very first day Nick Fury took office, Pierce had been watching him closely.
Hill's eyes widened in horror as she read.
Many of the projects she had known about, but many more she had never even heard of.
"These are all the studies Nick Fury conducted in secret, without informing any of us," Pierce said. "And where are the results of that research? Not in S.H.I.E.L.D.—so where?"
The answer was obvious.
The name Hydra flashed through every mind in the room. The real Hydra agents, however, looked genuinely puzzled.
At that moment the high-ranking agents Pierce had already contacted stepped forward in unison, standing behind him with solemn expressions.
"Deputy Director Hill, whether Director Fury is truly Hydra or not, we must detain him first and conduct a full investigation. If he is innocent, I'm sure he can provide a reasonable explanation for these projects. If he really is Hydra, we will show him no mercy!"
People were herd animals. Once the majority believed Nick Fury was Hydra, even if he wasn't, the suspicion would never wash off.
The genuine S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who still had doubts saw most of their colleagues already standing behind Pierce and simply gave up thinking. They followed the crowd.
Agents only needed to follow orders.
Besides, Pierce was the former director and a member of the World Security Council. How could anything he said be false?
If Nick Fury wasn't Hydra, did that mean Pierce was?
And if Pierce really was Hydra, why would he have given up the director's seat to Fury in the first place, only to come back and purge him now?
That made no logical sense.
So the moment Pierce stepped forward, the majority of the agents immediately accepted that Nick Fury was the Hydra mole.
Pierce's gaze swept over everyone like a security camera, silencing anyone who still wanted to speak up for Fury.
Even though Hill, Coulson, and the others refused to believe it, there was nothing they could do.
The men Pierce had brought already had guns pressed to their heads.
"I believe that after operating inside S.H.I.E.L.D. for so long, Director Fury must have planted other spies among us."
"I'm sorry, but all of you were Nick Fury's most trusted agents. For security reasons, we must subject you to a full investigation."
"Take them away!"
At Pierce's command, several agents immediately escorted Coulson, Hill, Natasha, Barton, and the rest toward the detention cells.
Strictly speaking, the way they were treated could not yet be called prisoner handling, which made many more agents believe Pierce was genuinely only removing traitors.
In a single moment Pierce had seized control of most of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s power.
But he did not relax.
He knew better than anyone that the ordinary agents were not the real problem. The real problem was the so-called superheroes—especially Captain America.
Still, he wanted to try. He wanted to see if he could keep the current situation stable long enough for Captain America to keep working for him, to turn Nick Fury's Avengers into Hydra's Avengers, to turn Captain America into Hydra's Captain.
So he summoned Steve.
Right now Captain America's mind was in turmoil after his recent conversation with Bant.
He still had no idea what had happened. When he saw Pierce sitting in Nick Fury's office, he paused in surprise.
"This is our first time meeting face to face, Captain."
Pierce said.
Steve frowned. "I thought Fury sent for me."
"There is no Fury anymore. He is Hydra." Pierce sighed and sank wearily into the chair, completely ignoring the shock on Steve's face.
"I made a mistake. I failed to see Nick Fury's true face and handed him the director's seat. I never imagined he would turn out to be a traitor."
"Because of him, for the past seventy years we have found almost no useful intelligence on Hydra's remnants. He was feeding them information the entire time."
"Because of him, S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer pure. Every single person could be a Hydra spy he planted. No one can trust anyone else."
'Did you betray us too, Nick Fury? Or… is the real Hydra standing right in front of me?'
Steve clenched his fists, lowered his head, and screamed inside his mind.
'Which side is real? I really can't tell anymore!'
"I know this is hard to believe." Pierce saw the confusion and pain on Steve's face and thought he still had a chance. "After you woke up, Nick Fury was the first person who left a deep impression on you. It's like imprinting—you instinctively trust him. But he planned it that way from the beginning."
"So I'm supposed to trust you instead?"
Steve shot back.
At that moment he remembered every word Bant had said to him not long ago.
The world had become complicated.
This was no longer the era where you could simply charge forward with a shield. Sometimes you burned with ambition, ready to do something big, yet you didn't even know who the enemy was or where they were hiding.
What good was a body full of super-soldier serum then?
You clenched your fist, but you didn't even know who to hit.
Hearing Steve's question, Pierce realized he had no hope of winning the captain over.
He hid the killing intent in his eyes and turned away. He did not flip on Steve immediately—not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't beat him.
"I believe time will give you the answer, Captain."
"I hope so…"
Steve turned and left the office.
The second he stepped out, Pierce snatched up the phone and dialed the Strike Team.
"Capture Captain America and the other Avengers immediately!"
Unlike the ordinary agents who had been deceived, the Strike Team led by Crossbones belonged entirely to Hydra.
The moment they received Pierce's order they grabbed their weapons and moved toward Steve's location without hesitation.
Inside the elevator.
The tall Steve stood in the center, surrounded by several groups of people dressed in different styles.
The elevator stopped several times. First the Strike Team members squeezed in, then a few men in suits stepped aboard.
By the time the doors opened and closed again, Steve realized he was surrounded.
These people looked completely normal, but at such a sensitive moment Steve sensed something was wrong.
Crossbones casually rested his hand on the gun at his thigh. The other Strike Team members were visibly tense, sweat beading on their foreheads.
The men in suits wore combat boots that clashed with their formal attire—the suits were clearly just a disguise.
He understood instantly.
These people had come for him.
At that moment Steve knew for certain: he still didn't know whether Nick Fury could be trusted, but Pierce definitely could not.
And these men sent to arrest him—were they true Hydra, or simply agents following orders?
Steve didn't know.
He could no longer tell who was friend and who was enemy.
Once again he remembered the conversation he had with Bant not long ago.
He had asked Bant how they could completely eliminate every last member of Hydra.
Bant's answer had been simple: become Hydra.
At first Steve had thought Bant was a Hydra sleeper agent himself. But after Bant explained, Steve finally understood.
Only by becoming Hydra could you fight Hydra on its own terms.
If he became the leader of Hydra, would he still have trouble getting the full list of every member?
Once the snakes in their dens learned that even Captain America was one of them, they would immediately hail him as king. He would become Hydra's Captain and lead Hydra to greatness once more.
All it would cost him was one light sentence.
Hail Hydra.
"Actually, the people in Hydra are quite simple," Bant's voice seemed to echo in Steve's ear even now.
"Every one of them believes they are perfectly hidden inside S.H.I.E.L.D. The organization is split into countless factions. To avoid being wiped out in one strike, even important figures don't know the identity of every single member. That means they have no way of confirming whether you are truly one of them, Captain."
"More importantly, no one would ever believe the real Captain America would say those words—unless you actually were Hydra."
That was exactly why, when Steve uttered the phrase "Hail Hydra," its impact on real Hydra members would be devastating.
Before hearing Bant's plan, Steve had never imagined such a method existed.
But he could not do it.
He could never say those words. He could never say: Hail Hydra.
The Steve Rogers standing here was not the man who had lived through countless crises, watched the world fall apart, and returned from Avengers: Endgame.
A few months ago he had only just been pulled from the ice.
World War II, Hydra, the Nazis…
To modern people those things were distant history. To him they had happened only yesterday.
By comparison, everything that had happened in the last few months felt like a bizarre dream he could not wake from.
In his subconscious the war had never ended. The moment he closed his eyes he could still hear cannon fire and screams. He could still see his fallen comrades, Bucky, Peggy…
How could he say those words?
How could he betray himself? How could he betray the dead?
Steve swore to himself that he would rather die—jump out of the elevator and die outside—than ever utter "Hail Hydra."
He closed his eyes and let out a long, heavy breath.
When he opened them again, his gaze was filled with absolute resolve.
Then let's fight.
He had already died once anyway.
He thought.
"Before it begins, does anyone want to get off the elevator?"
/-\
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