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Berlin. Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre.
A fortress of reinforced concrete spanning the Spree River — surveillance cameras on every surface, armed tactical teams at every checkpoint, the most advanced identification systems money could buy. An iron bucket that nothing could breach.
In theory.
"Hand over your weapons."
The agent's face was professionally blank. "Especially the shield and the flight wings."
Steve surrendered his shield without a word. Sam removed his gear with considerably more attitude.
The agent approached Jake, looked at the green-and-black watch, then at Jake's expression — a half-smile that carried the particular energy of someone who was cooperating by choice, not by force — and instinctively pulled his hand back.
"Don't bother." Jake raised his wrist and gave it a shake. "This thing is DNA-bonded with an anti-tamper failsafe. The self-destruct yield is enough to take Berlin off the map. Want to test it?"
The agent retreated a full step.
"Lock it in non-combat mode," Ross ordered, face ashen. "Level One solitary cell. If you make a move, the automated defense grid turns you into a sieve."
"Level One solitary?" Jake smiled. "Ross, I'm staying because I'm giving Tony face. Not because of your walls."
"Take them away!"
Observation area.
Behind the one-way glass, Tony watched the interrogation room feed. Bucky Barnes was locked in a specialized containment pod — hydraulic shackles on every limb, explosion-proof glass, the works. Across from him sat a psychiatrist in gold-rimmed glasses, speaking in measured, professional tones.
"He's secure in there." Tony turned to the group being escorted in. "Once the evaluation's done, I'll get him the best psychiatric treatment available. Not the electric chair."
"Procedures." Jake ignored the guards entirely, sat on the conference table, and helped himself to a bag of dried blueberries. "Tony, do you actually believe this place is safe? Or are you just that devoted to your paperwork?"
"This is a top-level UN facility. Not even a fly gets in."
"Is that so?" Jake pointed at the psychiatrist behind the glass. "Have you checked that doctor?"
Tony blinked. "He's UN-appointed. Passed every background—"
"Background checks." Jake's eyes glinted. "If I were you, I'd have FRIDAY verify right now why the real Dr. Broussard's body was found in a hotel bathtub this morning."
"WHAT?!" Tony's hand flew to his earpiece. "FRIDAY! Facial verification on that doctor! NOW!"
Jake stood and walked toward the interrogation room door.
"I'm going to pull that man out."
Two SWAT officers raised weapons. Ross surged forward. "STAND DOWN, Rivers! That's a high-security zone! If you break in, you're violating the Accords!"
Jake stopped. Looked at the gun barrels. At Ross's blustering face.
He laughed softly. Sat back down.
"Fine. I won't break in." He spread his hands, eyes glacial. "Remember this moment, General Ross. You're the one who stopped me. When it goes wrong — and it will — don't come crying."
Almost as the last word left his mouth—
ZZZZZT—!
Every light in the building died.
EMP strike. Every electronic lock, every camera, every defense system — killed instantly. Red emergency lights flickered to life. Alarms screamed.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" Ross roared into dead comms.
In the darkness, Jake's voice drifted through, carrying infinite mockery:
"See? This is your 'absolute security.'"
Interrogation room.
By the glow of a phone screen, Helmut Zemo opened a red book.
Bucky saw it. His pupils contracted to pinpoints. His metal arm slammed against the shackles — BANG BANG BANG — each impact cracking the hydraulic housing.
"No — don't read it—"
Zemo began. Calm. Precise. Russian syllables falling like hammer blows:
Longing.
Rusted.
Seventeen.
"SHUT UP!!!" Bucky's scream shook the walls. Cracks spiderwebbed across the explosion-proof glass.
The office erupted into chaos.
"Steve! DON'T—" Tony tried to stop the Captain.
Too late. Steve and Sam crashed through the door and sprinted for the interrogation wing.
"You're not going?" Gwen looked at Jake, still seated on the table.
"Let the bullets fly for a while." Jake watched the corridor. "Some lessons don't stick unless they draw blood."
Over the intercom, Zemo's final word:
Freight Car.
BOOM!!!
The nuclear-blast-rated glass pod shattered. A silver fist punched through it like tissue paper.
Bucky Barnes raised his head. The confusion was gone. The man was gone. What looked out from behind those eyes was seventy years of programming, wiped clean of everything except one directive.
Kill.
The Winter Soldier was online.
The next five minutes were a masterclass in why brainwashed super-soldiers were classified as weapons of mass destruction.
Steve arrived first. Tried to reach his friend. Got a metal fist to the sternum that launched him through a concrete wall.
Sam engaged with the wings he didn't have. The Winter Soldier grabbed him mid-tackle and slammed him into the floor hard enough to crack the tiles.
Tony — one gauntlet, no suit — tried close combat. Every technique was dismantled instantly by the Winter Soldier's master-level killing arts. A gun pressed against his forehead. Tony blocked it with the gauntlet a half-second before his story ended.
Sharon Carter and Natasha went down in sequence.
T'Challa — no suit, no claws, fighting in civilian clothes — landed a spinning kick to the Winter Soldier's chest. The Winter Soldier didn't flinch. He caught T'Challa's leg and threw him down a stairwell.
The base was in ruins. The Winter Soldier carved through every obstacle, heading straight for the rooftop helipad.
"He's escaping!" Tony shouted, blood running from his split lip. "Stop that helicopter!"
The Winter Soldier was already in the cockpit. Rotors spinning. The bird lifting off.
Steve sprinted to the edge and grabbed the landing gear with one hand, hooking the other onto the helipad railing.
"AAAAAAH!" His biceps bulged to the point of tearing his sleeves as he fought the helicopter's lift with nothing but muscle and determination.
The helicopter swayed. Strained. Continued rising.
"Steve can't hold it!" Sam shouted.
"Sigh. I really can't watch this anymore."
A lazy voice cut through the rotor wash.
Green flash.
A massive yellow alien appeared at the helipad's edge — armored like a pangolin, round, compact, and carrying the particular energy of something that was about to become a projectile.
Cannonbolt. Arburian Pelarota.
"I prefer bowling over tug-of-war."
Cannonbolt didn't grab the helicopter. He curled into a massive yellow sphere, revved up on the helipad's slope, and launched.
BOOOM!!!
The spinning armored sphere hit the helicopter's fuselage like a wrecking ball with an attitude problem. The tail rotor snapped clean off. The aircraft spun out of control and crashed back to the helipad in a crumpling, shrieking avalanche of metal and broken rotors.
The Winter Soldier crawled from the wreckage, metal arm rising—
Green flash.
A red hand the size of a dinner table pinned his head to the concrete.
Four Arms.
Jake held the Winter Soldier's skull against the ground with one hand. The metal arm thrashed, strained, pushed — and accomplished nothing against thirteen feet of Tetramand strength.
"Nice arm. Decent power." Jake looked down with four eyes. "How about I rip it off and use it as a backscratcher?"
He raised his head and surveyed the scene.
Tony — lip bleeding, gauntlet cracked. Steve — panting, uniform torn. T'Challa — clutching bruised ribs. Sam — limping. SWAT officers scattered across the ground like dropped chess pieces. The entire facility, in shambles.
And Zemo — the man who'd caused all of it — had vanished into the night during the chaos.
Jake glanced in the direction Zemo had fled. He didn't pursue. Go ahead. Go to Siberia. Dig up that truth. The one that's going to blow everything apart.
Four Arms' gaze swept across the battered, humiliated defenders of the Accords.
"Where's General Ross? Why isn't he calling his SWAT teams now?"
Jake's voice rang across the ruins like a bell.
"Is this your combat capability under the Accords? You couldn't handle one psychiatrist and a seventy-year-old veteran."
"Tony — if your 'supervision' turns everyone into this—"
Jake knocked out the struggling Winter Soldier with a single punch and stood to his full thirteen-foot height. The searchlights cast his shadow across the wreckage like a monument.
"—then the world is better off being protected by 'illegal armaments' like me."
Silence.
Only the crackle of the burning helicopter.
Tony Stark looked at the wreckage. At the unconscious soldiers. At the four-armed alien standing in the ruins of everything the Accords were supposed to prevent.
And for the first time — real doubt entered his eyes.
Maybe Jake was right.
[System notification — suppressed from display]
[Worldline divergence: accelerating.]
[Host warning ignored by authority figures → followed by decisive intervention.]
[Emotion resonance: 950,000 points.]
[Achievement unlocked: "Only I Can End the Chaos."]
[Mission update: Zemo has fled to the airport. Assemble your team. The full-scale Avengers Civil War approaches.]
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