Liam tapped his fingers lightly on the table as if he were trying to remember something trivial. "Oh… damn, I forgot," he said mildly.
Fury's jaw tightened. The vein on his bald head looked like it was about to pop.
Liam grinned. "Relax, Director. I'm kidding. Alright, you want names? Let's start small and work our way up."
He raised a hand and started counting them off. "First — Agent Marcus Hale. Deep cover operative. Works under your European intelligence branch. He's been running HYDRA intel through S.H.I.E.L.D. field reports for years."
Fury's face hardened, but Liam kept going.
"Second — Jasper Sitwell. Another senior field operative. Third would be Brock Rumlow, the commander of the STRIKE, one of your elite strike units."
Fury didn't say a word, but his eye twitched as Liam kept on revealing their classified information as he if had read it on Google.
"Next — Dr. Leonard Weiss," Liam said. "You probably think he's one of your best scientists. Brilliant guy, loyal, helpful. Except he's been leaking every major breakthrough to HYDRA's private systems before it even hits your desk."
Tony frowned. "Wait, he's the one running the weapons integration program."
Liam nodded as he told him about the names according to the previous owner of the body's memories. "Yeah. And HYDRA's been getting every goddamn blueprint before you even approve it."
He leaned back in his chair again. His tone went flat. "And then there's Alexander Pierce."
The room went dead silent.
Even Fury froze. His one good eye narrowed dangerously. "You'd better watch what you say next, Walker."
Liam sighed. "Pierce isn't loyal to you. He never was. He's HYDRA. All the way down. He's been pulling strings from inside your command. Every mission that went sideways, every leak, every death that didn't add up, it all leads back to him."
Fury muttered furiousl,"Motherf"cker."
Liam with his eyes locked on Fury, spoke, "So yeah, that's your problem, Director."
Then, after a long pause, Liam spoke again, his tone even and deliberate. "I know just these names aren't enough to convince you, Director." He leaned forward, fingers tapping lightly on the table. "So how about this, I tell you the location to one of their bases?"
Fury's voice hardened "A base? Where?"
Liam's spoke seriously, "Siberia, Russia. High in the mountains. It's an old HYDRA facility from the Cold War. Officially shut down decades ago."
Fury frowned, "You're talking about a sleeper site?"
Liam shook his head slowly. "Not exactly. It's more than that. It's a lab — one of their most dangerous. It's where they made something called Winter Soldiers."
Steve frowned. "Winter Soldiers?"
"They're enhanced operatives," Liam said. "Super soldiers made to be stronger, faster and far more lethal than anything the military ever produced. Just like you Cap. Except their conditioning wasn't clean. HYDRA broke them mentally. Chemical rewiring, psychological reshaping, total obedience. They're weapons, not people."
Tony exhaled. "You're telling me HYDRA made more of those."
"Yes. And these ones were used differently." Liam locked eyes with them one at a time. "Every major political assassination over the last few decades that was written off as a lone gunman or a freak incident. Every high profile target who dropped dead without explanation. HYDRA sent Winter Soldiers.
A ripple went through the room.
Liam added. "When HYDRA needs someone removed, they wake a soldier, let him do the job, then put him back into the ice."
Fury let out a deep breath. "How certain are you."
"Certain enough to bet everything on it."
Liam didn't mention the name that sat heavy in his mind, Bucky Barnes. The only one among them who'd been more than just a weapon. The only one who'd ever broke free. But that was a story for later.
Tony blinked. "That's fucking insane."
"Yeah," Liam said flatly. "And there are six of them still alive."
Fury took a slow breath. "Alright. If this is real, we'll need to go there right now—"
Liam interrupted, tone hard. "No."
Fury's head snapped toward him. "Excuse me?"
Liam rubbed his forehead. "I just know there's a base somewhere in Siberia," he said. "That's it. No coordinates. No map. Just… that it exists."
Fury's expression hardened. "You're telling me you were going to drag us into this with half a lead?"
Liam shrugged slightly. "HYDRA covered their tracks well. But I know it's there. Buried deep."
Tony leaned back in his chair, chewing the last bite of pita. "Okay," he said finally. "You're talking about finding one underground base in the biggest damn freezer on Earth. You got anything that isn't just a feeling, Frostbite?"
Liam met his eyes. "Not coordinates," he said. "But patterns. HYDRA doesn't build at random. They hide behind existing infrastructure. Power grids, old Soviet energy plants, missile silos, anywhere they can hide their power draw under something real. They pick places that are isolated, believable, and easy to maintain. Most of the time."
Tony snorted. "You realize Siberia's two and a half million square miles, right? We're not looking for a base — we're looking for a ghost."
"Then you're the right guy for the job," Liam said.
Tony frowned. "Alright, fine. Let's say you're right. How the hell do we find this power leak? You got satellites? Utility access to Russia?"
Fury too spoke in agreement with Tony. "You're asking for a lot here, Walker," he said. "Even if Stark can scan every inch of that frozen wasteland, verifying a site like that isn't quick. It'll take time, cross-checking power grids, running satellite overlays, digging through decades of Soviet black files. Hell, just decrypting half those records could take days."
Liam didn't look away. His voice dropped low, steady. "Then you better start now, Director. Because if that base is still standing, even if it's abandoned... it's a ticking time bomb. The day HYDRA crawls back out of the shadows and wakes those six sleeping bastards, the world's gonna have another war on its hands."
He leaned forward, eyes cold and sharp. "Those six are trained killers. Enhanced. Uncontrollable. They don't need orders. They just need to be unleashed. When HYDRA starts moving, they'll be the first things sent out."
The table went silent again. Tony, Natasha, and Steve exchanged looks. Each of them understood what that meant in their own way.
Liam kept going. "And that's not all. Inside that base, there'll be records. Files. Experiment logs. Test results. Everything HYDRA's ever done in the name of science, control, or madness. The chemical conditioning. The neural rewriting. Maybe even blueprints for whatever they were planning next. All of it might still buried there."
Although in the Winter Soldier movie, HYDRA didn't use these killing machines, Fury and the rest didn't know the future and all this information could definitely help Liam cement the existence of HYDRA in everyone's mind.
'I guess it's working,' Liam thought as he saw the plot points in the blue wheel panel spike up. Now all that left was to compeletly pit them against each other and benefit from it.
Liam was pulled out of his thoughts when Tony suddenly sat forward, his whole posture shifting, the humor gone, the sarcasm gone, replaced by something sharp and cold.
"I want to come back to something you just said," Tony said, voice clipped. "These Winter Soldiers… responsible for every high-profile assassination."
Liam stayed still and waited.
Tony tapped his fingers on the table once. The sound echoed in the silence. "You said they killed important people. Targets the government would cover up. So tell me…" His jaw tightened. "Who were they?"
For the first time, Liam paused. He was just choosing his words on what to reveal and what not to.
Then he answered, his voice low and steady.
"Prime ministers. Military leaders. Intelligence heads. CEOs who funded projects HYDRA didn't like. Generals who refused to cooperate. Anyone who could reveal HYDRA's plans. Anyone who stood in their way."
Tony didn't show any emotion on his face, but the air around him felt heavier.
Liam continued. "President JFK, Ambassador Doyle in '92. General Kurlov in '04. MI6 agent Rainsfield in '97. The head of Germany's cyber division in '01. Senator—"
"Stop."
Tony's voice cut through the room like a blade.
Everyone froze.
Liam frowned. Fury looked toward Tony, sensing something was wrong.
Tony swallowed, trying to hold himself together. "You said HYDRA killed people who were a problem for them," he said slowly. "People who were… in their way."
Liam nodded his head.
Tony's breathing grew tighter. "My father… Howard Stark…" He stopped, struggling for a moment before speaking again. "He was an important man. He fought HYDRA. He never backed down. That would've made him a threat."
His voice dropped to almost a whisper, full of tension.
"So tell me… was he....were both my parents killed by HYDRA too?"
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Guys, I think I might have dragged this interaction for too long. I actually thought it would be better to get into much detail but I think I went overboard. Sorry for that and please bear with me for one more chapter as this is going to end in the next chapter. And I promise I won't drag such interactions for too long in the future.
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