In a remote area of the Russian Federation, an abandoned Soviet base had been completely turned to rubble following a brutal missile bombardment.
Yet the missiles didn't cease simply because Iron Man had been buried under the debris. Even as the base lay in ruins, wave after wave of missiles continued to relentlessly shell the area—less than a single square kilometer in size—without end.
The bombardment lasted for a full three minutes before finally grinding to a halt. Once the sky full of dust and smoke was swept away by the wind, a figure clad in titanium-gray armor edged with red accents emerged at the periphery of the base's ruins.
Standing nearly three meters tall with long, slender limbs, his titanium-gray armor gave him an appearance that looked even more steeped in science fiction than Iron Man's.
Beside the armored figure stood a massive piece of steel mecha nearly four meters tall, its entire frame cast in a dark red color scheme.
The former was Titanium Man, a former Soviet operative who had joined Hydra following the dissolution of the Soviet Union while wearing titanium-alloy armor.
The latter was a latest-generation Crimson Dynamo suit. However, the pilot was not Yuri Petrovich undergoing cybernetic modifications in Latveria, but rather another member of Hydra.
Not far from the pair, a massive, half-human, half-rhinoceros creature stamped the ground impatiently with his foot. He was one of Hydra's human experimentation subjects—Rhino.
"He's still alive," Titanium Man observed, gazing at the ruins of the base after it had been plowed by missiles.
"Dr. Zola bought enough time; otherwise, it would have been impossible for us to catch Iron Man under so many missile strikes. But by now, he should have lost all ability to resist," Crimson Dynamo remarked.
The roar of a truck engine cut off nearby as dozens of soldiers leaped out of the truck bed one after another. Printed clearly on the right chest and shoulders of their body armor was the emblem of Hydra.
Evidently, the previous missile volley had been their handiwork. Arriving in haste right after the missile carpet-bombing, each soldier came brandishing heavy firepower such as grenade launchers and rocket launchers.
"You two, go over there and dig Iron Man out," Titanium Man ordered, pointing casually at two Hydra soldiers.
"Yes, sir!"
Snap! The Hydra soldiers gave a sharp salute, covering the distance in quick strides to the location pointed out by Titanium Man before unholstering their entrenching shovels to start digging.
A few minutes later, Iron Man—Tony Stark—was dragged out with his Mark VIII suit blasted into a battered mess, the lights in his eye lenses completely extinguished, before being tossed down right in front of Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo.
Clack!
Titanium Man extended a long, slender, titanium-gray finger to unlatch and remove Iron Man's visor. Looking down at the playboy's blood-soaked face, he shook his head:
"I thought the famous Iron Man would prove a decent adversary. I didn't expect..."
He appeared thoroughly disappointed.
"If you find a single Iron Man boring, you can head to New York to test yourself against the Avengers," Crimson Dynamo mocked his companion.
"Heh, I just might," Titanium Man said.
Though the Mark VIII had been blasted to pieces, it hadn't gone completely scrap-metal dead; a series of urgent beeps was currently echoing from inside.
Titanium Man looked down, only to see a mechanical mechanism trembling on the arm of the Mark VIII, trying to deploy. Blocked by a damaged section of the armor plating itself, it could produce nothing more than a series of sharp beeps.
"It's an epinephrine auto-injector," Titanium Man said. "Let me give you a hand."
Saying so, he crouched down, pulled out the adrenaline injector, and personally rammed it into Iron Man's body.
Crimson Dynamo stood silently off to the side watching Titanium Man mess around, having zero inclination to intervene, and merely urged:
"Since he's still breathing, let's haul him off."
"Hold on," Titanium Man said.
He saw that with the injection of adrenaline, Iron Man's breathing began to accelerate and his blood flow quickened. In just a few short seconds, Tony opened his eyes.
Tony saw the three-meter-tall Titanium Man, saw the four-meter-tall Crimson Dynamo, saw Rhino, and saw the surrounding Hydra soldiers. The memories prior to falling unconscious flooded back into his brain in a rush.
His lips twitched, as though he wanted to say something.
Titanium Man leaned closer, only catching Tony muttering a single name under his breath:
"Veronica..."
"Who is Veronica?" Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo exchanged confused glances.
Simultaneously, in near-Earth orbit:
A reconnaissance satellite belonging to Stark Industries entered a pre-programmed sequence at the sound of Iron Man's whisper of "Veronica." Its outer shell detached automatically, activating a massive floating platform that plunged rapidly down toward the atmosphere.
In the suburbs of Washington, D.C., inside the high-rise where senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official Alexander Pierce had summoned Captain America:
Captain America, having undergone a thorough security search inside and out, stepped into a room surrounded on three sides by massive floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Steve," Pierce had been waiting for a long time, speaking up the moment Captain America entered the room. "Sit. This office feels quite empty now, doesn't it? Nick is gone."
Captain America looked at Alexander Pierce. He had traveled all the way from New York to Washington precisely to see what this Alexander Pierce intended to do and to test whether the man was Hydra.
Before Captain America could open his mouth, Pierce contradicted himself:
"No, Nick Fury isn't just gone—he betrayed the trust of every single one of us.
"For that unsanctioned 'Secret War' of his, he misappropriated S.H.I.E.L.D. resources to blow up a castle in a foreign country, sending over a dozen operatives to die in Manhattan. Do you know what he told me at the end? 'For the greater good.'"
Captain America stood beside a desk in the room, making no move to sit down:
"Is this S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters?"
"In a sense, yes, though we don't broadcast information to the outside world from here. Even if hackers breached our systems, they would assume this is nothing more than an ordinary high-rise," Pierce said.
Captain America gave a slight nod, though he didn't buy a word of Pierce's explanation.
At the very least, before he set off, Batman had sought him out to brief him on the exact structural layout of this building, suitable surrounding extraction points, observation posts, and structural weak points.
This at least proved that Batman possessed full intelligence on this building; he had simply never bothered with it before because it didn't process classified communications.
"I am sharing this information with you in the hope that after you enter the building to scout it out, you can make a full retreat even if you encounter danger. Furthermore, keep Jack Monroe safe," Batman had told Captain America upon parting.
Snapping his thoughts back from memory to reality, Captain America looked toward Alexander Pierce, the high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. official:
"Sir, you called me all the way here—it seems you have something you wish to say?"
Pierce was nearly ten years younger than Captain America, yet the physical appearance of the two men could not be more different: one was covered in deep wrinkles, while the other retained a youthful, vibrant complexion.
Seeing Captain America's inquiry, the wrinkles on Pierce's face bunched together:
"I want you to join us... and fight for a better future."
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