Luke Cage sat on the stiff metal cot, absolutely certain there wasn't a single decent cop in this entire precinct.
He had been arrested yesterday. It was nearly noon now, and he hadn't been given a drop of water, let alone a meal. He leaned his heavy head back against the concrete block wall. Was it just the standard NYPD treatment for a Black man from Harlem, or did they know exactly who they were holding and wanted to starve him out? Either way, the gnawing in his gut was excruciating.
He distracted himself by tracing his own history—from Carl Lucas, the framed convict, to Luke Cage, the bulletproof man. The reminiscing brought a stark clarity. His best days were the ones where he put his neck on the line for someone else. Standing up to draw Hydra's crosshairs? That had been the most liberating moment of his life. He wasn't just surviving anymore; he was deciding his own fate. He had made his choice.
And the moment to test that choice had just arrived.
The concrete wall of his cell groaned. Dust rained from the ceiling. A second later, the entire slab of reinforced concrete was ripped away like wet cardboard. A man stood in the jagged opening, casting a shadow that dwarfed even Luke's massive frame.
"Luke Cage," the giant rumbled. "The boss sent me to bust you out."
Luke didn't stand up. "Who the hell is your boss?"
The mercenary didn't answer. He just raised a metallic gauntlet, a hiss of pressurized gas—nerve agent, probably—preparing to spray. Luke held his breath, planting his feet to launch a haymaker.
"Halt!"
A voice rang out, echoing like a badly dubbed martial arts flick. A figure descended from the sky, wearing an open green coat. His right hand burned with a blinding, golden radiance. He drove that glowing fist straight into the giant's skull.
"I am the protector of K'un-Lun!" the man shouted, landing gracefully. "The Immortal Iron Fist! I have been waiting for you, jailbreaker!"
Luke Cage just stared. A giant question mark practically hovered over his bald head.
Who the hell was this guy? He wore a green tunic completely open at the chest, showing off eight-pack abs and a massive black dragon tattoo. He was a skinny white kid playing dress-up in loose linen pants and kung fu slippers. The kicker? A bright yellow bandana wrapped around the top half of his head with two eye holes cut out.
WheredidMattMurdockfindthisguy?
The Hydra super soldier stumbled back, entirely unprepared for glowing martial arts magic. Hydra had prepped for Daredevil—a blind guy with sticks. Not this.
The "Immortal Iron Fist" didn't give the giant a chance to recover. He dropped into a deep horse stance, centering his breathing. Golden energy flared around him, swirling like a spectral dragon.
"The Dragon's breath pierces the heavens!"
He unleashed a flurry of blows. Dozens of strikes slammed into the giant's torso. Each impact rang out like a war drum, echoing like muffled thunder through the ruined precinct. The martial artist drew his arm back for a final, devastating blow. The golden light intensified, flashing like a localized sun before he drove his fist forward.
A silent shockwave exploded outward. The burly Hydra giant was launched completely off his feet, flying backward through the air for fifty yards before crashing through the brick wall of an adjacent building.
Luke looked at the giant hole in the wall, then down at the kid's glowing fist.
"Are you seriously wearing that?" Luke asked.
The glowing light faded. The kid lowered his hands, suddenly looking very defensive. "...Matt's outfit isn't much better."
Deep underground, Ophelia—Viper—watched the live feed from the precinct's security cameras. She let out a long, irritated sigh. She had prepared for Daredevil to attempt a prison break.
She keyed her comms. "Mobilize all Viper Security squads. Anyone assisting Luke Cage is to be classified as an accomplice. Eliminate them all at once."
Heavily armored Viper mercenaries flooded the courtyard outside Luke's ruined cell, riot shields locked and assault rifles raised. Luke and Iron Fist dropped into fighting stances.
Before the Viper squad could fire a single shot, a deafening roar of automatic gunfire chewed through their rear flank. A broad-shouldered man in a black leather trench coat—a white skull painted on his tactical vest—marched forward, firing an assault rifle from each hip.
The mercenaries' high-grade armor absorbed the worst of it, keeping the fatality rate low, but the kinetic impact broke their formation. Frank Castle's rifles clicked empty. He didn't blink, simply dropping them and drawing heavy-caliber pistols in a blur of motion.
Above them, Daredevil vaulted off the precinct roof. He spun his billy club, dropping gracefully onto a mercenary's shoulders and knocking him out cold with a brutal strike to the temple. The Punisher and Daredevil locked down the rear exit. The four street-level heroes had the Viper squad completely boxed in.
It'satrap, Ophelia realized instantly, watching her monitors. Butsowhat? Whatdofourstreet-levelvigilantesthinktheycanachievewithouttheAvengers?
Except, it wasn't four.
A Viper Security helicopter lifted off from the precinct helipad, rotating its heavy machine guns toward the courtyard. Suddenly, the chopper lurched wildly.
Jessica Jones dropped out of the sky directly onto the cockpit glass. She shattered the windshield with one punch, grabbed the pilot by his tactical vest, and choked him into unconsciousness while the chopper spun. She forcefully leveled the controls, brought the helicopter down in a hard, screeching landing, and casually stepped out of the mangled cockpit, walking over to join Daredevil.
Iron Fist stared at her, genuinely shocked. "I thought... I thought none of us could fly?"
"I'm more curious how she knows how to land a helicopter," Luke muttered, cracking his knuckles. He charged headlong into the staggered Viper mercenaries. The courtyard erupted into total chaos.
In the underground base, Ophelia scowled at the monitors. The math didn't add up. Could Daredevil and his little friends really dismantle Viper Security alone? And even if they did, how did they plan to deal with the heavy American military reinforcements waiting in the wings?
A piercing alarm shrieked through the command center.
Ophelia snapped her head toward the internal security feed. The screen displayed the lowest sublevel of her supposedly impenetrable laboratory. Two figures were dropping silently from a ventilation shaft—Spider-Man, and a woman in a skintight black leather suit.
The realization hit her like a physical blow. The precinct riot. Luke Cage. The Defenders. It was all a distraction.
"What the hell is Pierce doing?!" Ophelia snarled, her composure shattering. "What is Zemo doing?! Strucker?! Spider-Man waltzes into my base and nobody notices? Are the rest of the Hydra heads entirely incompetent?!"
Seething with rage, Viper snatched the primary comms radio off the console. Her voice was ice.
"Deploy the super soldiers to the lower labs. Bring me the spider's head."
PS: The Defenders have a weird history! In classic Marvel Comics, the original Defenders were actually a "non-team" of heavy-hitting loners like Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Surfer. It wasn't until the Marvel/Netflix television era that Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist were grouped together to become the definitive street-level "Defenders" of New York City! Also, Danny Rand's classic plunging-neckline green tunic and yellow mask have historically been notoriously difficult to translate into live-action without looking completely absurd.