Las Vegas Underground Base
Several street-level heroes still stationed at the facility looked up in surprise as Ben's team materialized through the quantum transport portal. Most of the resistance fighters had already departed for their assigned missions, either hijacking Hydra evacuation ships or preparing for the coordinated strike once Natasha disabled the planetary shield.
Only a skeleton crew remained behind to protect the civilians still sheltering in the base's deeper sections. Las Vegas's population needed evacuation too, after all.
"You're back already?" A hero Ben didn't recognize, wearing a makeshift costume cobbled together from riot gear, approached with obvious confusion. "You've barely been gone an hour. Where's Hope?"
"Mission accomplished." Ben held up the Cosmic Cube fragment, its surface shimmering with barely contained spatial energy. The object seemed to fold in on itself at impossible angles, hurting to look at directly. "We secured the fragment from Ultron's domain."
As for the Wasp, after Ben had freed Dr. Pym from his technological prison, Hope had naturally remained with her father. They had years of separation to process, wounds to address that couldn't be rushed. Besides, Pym might attempt using Ultron's remaining infrastructure to evacuate additional civilians before Earth's destruction.
"Wait, my son Tony isn't back yet?" Ben said "Also, can I borrow his laboratory? I need to run some analysis."
The street hero paused, parsing that statement. "Your... son? Tony Stark is your son?" He looked Ben up and down, noting his apparent age. "He looks older than you do."
"Complicated family dynamics," Ben said dismissively, already moving toward the lab section.
"Are you planning to create some kind of amazing invention?" the street hero asked.
"Something like that." Ben placed the separated Cube fragment on the analysis platform, sophisticated scanning equipment immediately beginning to map its quantum signature. "Ever heard of Dragon Ball Radar?"
The hero shook his head.
"It's from an anime. The basic principle is simple: if these are all fragments of the same original object, they should emit matching energy frequencies. Analyze one fragment thoroughly enough, and you can create a tracking device to locate all the others."
Ben's fingers flew across the holographic interface, fine-tuning the scan parameters. "Rick Jones's intelligence may not have been comprehensive. There could be more Cube fragments scattered across this world than what was documented. I have more faith in my own technology than in second-hand information."
The hero nodded slowly, clearly not understanding most of that but unwilling to admit it. "Right. Well, I'll just... leave you to it then."
He wandered off to check on the civilian quarters.
Across the room, Scott Lang edged toward a corner with exaggerated casualness, his body language screaming guilt to anyone paying attention. He pulled out his phone, hunching over it like he was trying to disappear into his own shoulders.
"Sorry, Cassie," he muttered, voice barely above a whisper. "Next time, I promise. Next time I'll..."
Ben glanced at him, expression neutral.
But his eyes held something else. Amusement, perhaps. Or calculation.
While the analysis instruments hummed through their work, Ben activated his internal communications. "Azmuth, wiretap Scott's phone. I want to know exactly who he's talking to."
The AI's response came in less than a second. "Sir, Scott's call signal is being routed directly to Hydra headquarters. Multiple layers of encryption, but nothing I can't penetrate."
"Intercept it. Don't let the message through."
Ben's surprise was genuine, though he kept it off his face. He'd found it peculiar that Hydra operatives had arrived at Ultron's domain so shortly after his own team. Yes, Hydra probably already knew some fragment locations from their own intelligence gathering. But showing up at exactly the same time as Ben's team? That indicated they had specific knowledge of the resistance's plans.
Someone had told them.
"Sir, I've analyzed Scott's previous communication logs." Azmuth's tone carried digital disapproval. "Hydra is holding his daughter hostage. That said, Scott has not revealed all operational information to them."
The AI paused. "The spacecraft hijacking operation and the headquarters infiltration plan remain classified. However, your personal movements and those of the other fragment-recovery teams have been completely compromised."
"At least he has some conscience left." Ben's voice carried grudging respect. "The hijacking and infiltration operations affect millions of lives. The fact that he kept those secret proves he's still human underneath the coercion."
As for Ben's own compromised position... that was irrelevant. They'd inevitably clash with Hydra while competing for fragments anyway. Besides, the decoys he'd left in Washington weren't particularly sophisticated. Discovery was only a matter of time.
"No, actually, I'm still annoyed!" Ben slammed his fist on the laboratory table hard enough to make the equipment jump. The outburst startled a passing technician. "I'm petty like that! It's one of my defining character traits!"
He dropped into the nearest chair, mind already racing through possibilities. "We need to find a way to deceive Steve. Turn this information leak into a weapon."
The pieces aligned in his head with satisfying precision. "That Hydra Captain doesn't know much about my capabilities, but he still sent Vision to deal with me specifically. That suggests the other teams' operations aren't going smoothly."
His intuition was correct.
At that very moment in Atlantis, Hawkeye, AI Tony, and Amadeus Cho had encountered the real Steve Rogers himself, backed by a full complement of Hydra's elite forces.
In the mutant nation of New Tian, Quicksilver hadn't even completed introductions between Looma and the mutant ambassador Beast before they'd been ambushed by Scarlet Witch, her mind still enslaved by the underworld god's consciousness.
Only Wakanda was proceeding relatively smoothly. T'Challa had encountered a despondent Thor at the border. The fallen god, outwardly compliant with Hydra but inwardly seething with doubt, had allowed T'Challa passage back to his kingdom. Though even after meeting his counterpart from another universe, this world's T'Challa as king refused to surrender the fragment without significant persuasion.
"T'Challa probably has the best chance of securing his target fragment," Ben mused aloud. "But you know what? It doesn't actually matter anymore."
A slow smile spread across his face.
"Why should I waste time and energy hunting down every last fragment? Let Hydra do the collection work. I'll just wait for them to gather everything in one convenient location."
He pulled up the analysis results, quantum wavelength patterns scrolling across the holographic display. "Azmuth, synthesize Scott's voice pattern. Call Captain Hydra. Time to give him a progress report and, more importantly..."
Ben's smile widened. "Hydra has so many personnel at their disposal. It's only fair we give them additional responsibilities. Make sure to include Vision in the communication. Let them think they're coordinating perfectly."
Deep beneath the crushing pressure of the Atlantic Ocean, the Hydra command submarine prowled the darkness like a steel leviathan. The air inside was recycled and sterile, filled with the low, rhythmic thrum of the nuclear reactor and the soft beeping of sonar arrays.
In the dimly lit command center, Supreme Leader Steve Rogers stood before a bank of tactical monitors. He wore the green and gold uniform of the Hydra Empire, the shield on his back painted with the insignia of the organization he now led with absolute conviction. He adjusted his tactical headset, pressing it closer to his ear as the encrypted transmission crackled through the static.
A rare, genuine smile broke the severe, stoic lines of his face.
"Report," Steve commanded, his voice echoing in the hush of the bridge. He listened intently, his eyes widening with triumph. "Repeat that? Confirm payload." He paused, nodding slowly. "They secured the fragment from Ultron? And the analysis for the remaining shards is complete?"
He listened to the confirmation, his heart rate accelerating with the thrill of victory. "Vision is en route with the payload? Excellent. Prepare the containment unit."
Adrenaline surged through his veins, the Super Soldier Serum amplifying his reaction. He rose from his command chair, pacing the small metal deck with restless energy. The final pieces were falling into place. The chaos of the multiverse collision, the threat of annihilation—it was all manageable now.
But then, the voice on the other end hesitated, the static hissing like a serpent before delivering a second, far colder piece of intelligence.
Steve stopped mid-step. The triumph drained from his features, replaced by a hollow, aching void. His hand gripped the edge of the holotable, the metal groaning under the pressure of his fingers.
"Zemo..." he whispered, the name catching in his throat. "He's gone?"
A heavy silence filled the bridge. The technicians kept their heads down, terrified to look at their leader in this moment of vulnerability. Helmut Zemo.
The grief was a physical weight, pressing against his chest, threatening to crack his sternum. Zemo was dead. The cost of this war was mounting, piling bodies upon bodies.
But a Supreme Leader could not mourn. Not yet.
Steve inhaled sharply, forcing the pain into a box in his mind, locking it away to be dealt with after the victory. He straightened his posture, his blue eyes hardening into chips of ice.
"It is... acceptable," he said into the headset, though the words tasted like ash. "These are necessary sacrifices for the new world order. Zemo understood the price of peace."
He turned his gaze to the corner of the command center, where a man in a red and black suit sat huddled, looking despondent.
"Do not despair, Scott," Steve said, his voice dropping to a manipulative, reassuring purr as he addressed Scott Lang. "We have suffered losses, yes. But once the Cosmic Cube is whole, reality itself bends to our will. Death is not permanent. Zemo will return. And you... you will sit at a dinner table with Cassie again. You will have that happy ending. I promise you that."
He spoke the lie until it became truth in his own mind. That was the seductive power of the Cosmic Cube—the promise of a perfect world where no sacrifice was permanent, where mistakes could be erased with a thought. The anticipation of absolute victory began to burn away the grief, replaced by a fanatical fervor.
Steve turned back to the main tactical display. The screen flickered to life, showing a high-resolution surveillance feed of a seemingly innocuous slushie shop in Washington, D.C., on the colliding Earth.
Inside the shop, Ben Parker and his allies were gathered, huddled in what appeared to be a clandestine meeting. They looked serious, exchanging information, plotting their next move against the encroaching universe.
But Steve's eyes narrowed. He saw through the charade immediately.
"Ben Parker," he murmured, a low, dark chuckle rumbling in his chest. "You think a simple holographic projection or a staged meeting can deceive Hydra? You clever, arrogant fool."
He leaned closer to the screen, tracing the image of his enemy's face. He projected all his anguish, all the rage over Zemo's death, onto the young man from the other universe. This intruder was the chaos that threatened his perfect order.
"Too bad you don't know I've already planted informants within the Avengers," Steve whispered to the image on the screen. "You play checkers while I play chess. I have eyes everywhere, Parker. Your every breath is cataloged. Your every move is under my control."
He tapped a sequence of keys on the console, bringing up troop movement schematics.
"And you don't know that I was using the relocation of civilians as a pretext, do you?"
On the surface, it looked like the Hydra Empire was scrambling to evacuate citizens away from the collision points, retreating in the face of the apocalypse. But that was merely the board being cleared.
"I am not saving them; I am clearing the firing line," he thought, a cruel smile touching his lips. "I am gathering the full might of Hydra's war machine."
His mind raced through the final stages of the Grand Plan. The fragments were coming together. Vision was bringing the piece from Ultron. The map was complete.
"Once the Cosmic Cube is all assembled, it will be the moment when Hydra attacks the other Earth!"
ztheir petty antimatter annihilation bombs... they were thinking too small. They were playing with firecrackers. Steve Rogers held the match to a supernova. Why merely destroy a world to save another when you could rewrite existence itself?
"What are annihilation weapons compared to the power of a god?" he mused.
He could feel the potential humming in the air. He wouldn't just use the Cube to resolve the collision crisis. He wouldn't just push the worlds apart.
"I will bridge the gap," Steve vowed, his reflection staring back at him from the dark glass of the submarine's viewport, fractured and resolute. "I will unleash the brilliance of Hydra upon the universe where you reside, Ben Parker. Two worlds, united under one Supreme Leader. Perfect order. Forever."
"Hail Hydra," he whispered into the silence of the deep.