Eastern Europe — night.
The HYDRA facility didn't exist on any map that mattered. Buried beneath an abandoned steelworks, shielded against satellites, cloaked with Cold War paranoia and modern encryption.
It wouldn't have mattered.
Bruce hovered ten kilometers above the site, invisible, cape blending into the night sky.
He didn't rush.
He observed.
X-ray vision peeled the ground away layer by layer. Concrete. Steel. Lead-lined chambers. Men. Weapons. Files. Servers.
He catalogued everything in seconds.
214 personnel
17 scientists
9 enhanced prototypes (failed)
1 Zola-derived AI core (primitive)
His jaw tightened.
"Still digging up ghosts," he muttered.
The sun had set hours ago, but his cells were full. Excess solar energy flowed smoothly into the ring, which hummed faintly, ready.
He descended.
The first guard never knew.
A pressure point strike — measured, controlled — dropped him before his brain could register surprise. Bruce caught the body, lowered it gently to the floor.
No alarms.
No bodies left in obvious places.
Batman's discipline guided every movement.
When the first camera swept his position, green light flickered — not a blast, not a construct — but a thin veil, bending light just enough to make him unnoticeable.
Not invisible.
Ignored.
He moved through the corridors like a thought no one wanted to finish.
The lab was the heart of it.
Hydra scientists worked under harsh lights, arguing in hushed voices over blood samples that shouldn't exist.
A tall man in a black coat oversaw them, calm, precise.
Wolfgang von Strucker.
Bruce stepped into the room.
The lights died.
Panic followed.
Emergency generators kicked in, bathing the lab in red.
Strucker reached for a sidearm.
Bruce was already there.
The gun crumpled in Strucker's hand, compressed into a useless lump of metal.
Strucker looked up.
Red eyes burned in the darkness.
"Who—"
Bruce grabbed him by the collar and lifted him effortlessly off the ground.
"You don't get to ask questions," Bruce said quietly.
Green energy snapped around Strucker's limbs, pinning him mid-air.
The scientists screamed. Some ran. Some froze.
Bruce turned his head slightly.
"Leave," he said.
His voice carried weight.
They left.
Bruce dropped Strucker onto a steel table. The man coughed, gasping.
"You think you're a god?" Strucker spat.
Bruce leaned in, eyes level with his.
"No," he said. "That's why you're alive."
He tapped Strucker's temple lightly.
A green construct flared — not invasive, not damaging — but extractive. Data, memories, networks.
Names.
Cells.
Safe houses.
Sleeper agents.
HYDRA wasn't a snake.
It was a forest.
Bruce absorbed it all in seconds.
Then he straightened.
"Here's what's going to happen," Bruce said. "Every asset you control will be exposed within seventy-two hours."
Strucker laughed weakly. "You think SHIELD will stop us?"
Bruce's expression didn't change.
"I'm not calling SHIELD."
He turned.
Green light spread outward, threading through walls, floors, data cables — precise, surgical. Servers shut down. Drives wiped. AI cores erased mid-process.
The facility began to die.
Alarms screamed now, but it was too late.
Bruce stopped at the doorway and looked back.
"You will be found," he said. "You will be imprisoned."
He paused.
"And HYDRA will be afraid of the dark."
He vanished.
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