The Quinjet cut through the icy winds of Siberia, flying low enough that radar would not pick them up. Inside the cockpit, the pilot did not say a word. He was one of Fury's trusted ghosts, not officially enlisted, not on payroll, not in any database.
Tony stood near the ramp in full Iron Man armor, faceplate open, expression tired but sharp. Days of combing HYDRA's analog relay networks had led to this. A trail of buried files, dead satellites, and Soviet-era backend nodes. He and Banner followed the breadcrumb chain together.
Bruce Banner sat beside him, tightening the straps of his reinforced coat. He was not trembling yet, but the tension lived in his shoulders.
The pilot's voice crackled in on the intercom.
"We're approaching the coordinates. No signatures above ground. All systems quiet."
Tony nodded. "Good. Quiet is suspicious. Jarvis?"
Jarvis replied through Tony's helmet.
"Sensors confirm a subterranean structure beneath the ridge. Heat traces minimal. Likely dormant."
"Or evacuated," Tony muttered. "Figures."
The pilot glanced back. "I'll circle at twenty clicks. Extraction on your signal."
Tony gave him a thumbs-up and sealed the faceplate.
"Drop us."
The Quinjet's rear bay opened. Snow blasted inside.
Tony held Banner and flew out. It was too cold outside and even with all kinds of layering Banner was shivering. Tony was in a better condition compared to him due to the suit's heating function.
Jarvis projected a grid-line overlay across Tony's HUD.
"Entrance is beneath the ice directly ahead. Metal composition matches HYDRA construction materials from the 1991 project."
Tony fired a low-yield repulsor blast, clearing the ice.
A steel hatch emerged, cracked with age and marked by a scratched-out HYDRA emblem.
Tony knelt. "Classic evil décor. They never change."
Banner shot him a look. "Tony."
"I know," Tony replied, voice flat. "Let's finish it."
He pulled the hatch open and a cold draft of stagnant air hissed out.
They descended.
Emergency lights flickered intermittently, giving the hallways a sickly orange glow. The air was thick with frost and disuse.
Tony walked ahead, armor humming quietly. Banner followed him, trying to control the rising tension. The walls led them to a large chamber.
Cryo pods lined the room.
Five of them.
All empty.
Banner exhaled shakily. "They moved them."
Tony clenched his jaw hard enough to hurt. "They were here. HYDRA does not abandon a facility like this unless they want to bury something."
Jarvis chimed in. "No active power sources detected. The facility is in dormant state."
Tony took a slow breath. "Jarvis, deep scan. Structure, wiring, magnetic signatures. I want to know if HYDRA left any"
Jarvis cut him off.
"Detecting a power surge in the lower sublevels. Something is activating."
Banner stiffened. "That's not good."
"Hydra protocol," Tony said. "Clean up the evidence."
The floor rumbled beneath their feet.
Red lights flickered to life down the corridor.
Jarvis's voice sharpened.
"Internal seismographs indicate a synchronized detonation sequence. This is a full facility self-destruct."
Tony swore. "Every villain cliché in one base."
He grabbed Bruce by the arm. "We're leaving. Now."
Explosions rippled beneath the floor. A shockwave tore through the cryo chamber, collapsing pipes and buckling support beams.
Banner braced himself. "Tony."
The ceiling cracked.
Chunks of ice and concrete fell.
Banner gasped, chest tightening. "Tony, I can't"
Tony's HUD filled with warnings.
"We need Banner, not the big guy. Hold it together."
But Banner's pupils shrank. His breathing spiked. His skin turned green.
Hulk roared.
"HULK HATES SMALL FREEZING TUNNELS."
Ice shattered as Hulk smashed through a collapsing wall, shielding Tony from falling debris.
Tony yelled, "Not arguing with that."
Hulk grabbed him firmly and barreled toward the access shaft.
Fire chased them.
Steel screamed and tore apart behind them.
The entire mountain groaned like a dying creature.
Hulk burst through the hatch a split-second before the ridge imploded. Fire blasted upward in a violent plume as the ground collapsed into a massive crater.
Snow and debris scattered across the ice.
Hulk skidded to a stop and set Tony down gently.
Tony's armor flickered, sparks sputtering across the chestplate.
"Fuck HYDRA," he muttered as he sat up.
Jarvis spoke through the damaged speakers.
"All subterranean structures have been destroyed. No salvageable infrastructure remains."
Tony stared at the crater, fists tightening.
"They knew we were coming."
Hulk grunted, chest still heaving. "Hulk smash later."
Tony did not reply.
He simply watched the crater, overwhelmed with the cold understanding that HYDRA had stayed one step ahead again.
Hulk stood silently at the edge, his massive shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths. And then, without warning, the green began to drain from his skin. His muscles shrank. His posture curled inward.
Within seconds, Bruce Banner was kneeling on the ice, half-conscious and wearing nothing but torn pants, shivering violently.
Tony snapped out of his quiet rage.
"Bruce, stay with me."
Banner tried to speak, but his jaw was locking from the cold. His lips were turning blue.
Without another word, Tony swept him up, repulsors flaring, and shot into the air.
The Quinjet descended toward them immediately, the pilot already opening the loading ramp the second he saw Tony approaching.
Inside the warmer cabin, Tony set Bruce down on the floor and grabbed a thermal blanket from the emergency compartment. Beneath it was a neatly folded spare set of clothes, all pre-packed for exactly this scenario.
He wrapped the blanket around Bruce's shoulders.
Banner's breathing slowly steadied. His shaking eased enough for him to stand and pull on the clothes.
He quietly zipped the jacket, then looked up at Tony with tired, apologetic eyes.
Tony leaned against the wall of the Quinjet, chestplate still sparking. Bruce asked softly,
"What now?"
Tony exhaled long and slow.
"We resume the other job."
Bruce blinked. "Zola."
Tony nodded.
"That analog AI storage nightmare keeps everything it sees. If there's even one backup server left in the world, it'll have information on where HYDRA moved those soldiers."
"So we find Zola first," Bruce said.
"We find Zola," Tony repeated.
He tapped his helmet.
"Pilot, take us home."
The Quinjet banked and flew into the gray sky.
---
Three days passed.
Three long days at Stark Tower, with multiple floors turned into what Bruce called "the world's largest analog archaeology project."
Jarvis scanned abandoned Cold War satellite nodes, dead S.H.I.E.L.D. relay lines, defunct SSR substations, and forgotten underground phone grids. Tony mapped everything on transparent screens hovering in mid-air.
Bruce helped him sift through everything they found, sorting signal distortions, identifying harmonic fingerprints, and eliminating natural electromagnetic noise.
They slept in shifts, ate almost nothing, and made no public appearances. No one knew where they were or what they were doing.
Except Fury.
And Fury had his own war to finish.
---
Fury's safehouse was colder than usual, but the air inside it hummed with reporters' broadcasts, intelligence transcripts, global statements, and raw chaos.
He watched it all unfold from a distance, hands clasped behind his back, expression unreadable.
Hydra was no longer a rumor.
No longer a fringe conspiracy.
No longer a "deepfake slander attempt."
It was real.
And the entire world knew.
The first broadcast had shattered the illusion.
The second had crushed the lie.
Within twenty-four hours, the media storm tore the World Security Council apart. International outrage drowned every attempt at damage control. Secret alliances collapsed. Governments demanded accountability.
And the council members — Hawley, Singh, Yen, Markovic, Aslanov, and Echeverria — were stripped of protection, arrested by their respective governments, and placed under immediate investigation.
All except two.
Gideon Malick.
Alexander Pierce.
Both were found dead in their private residences within minutes of each other.
Gunshot wounds.
No signs of struggle.
Hill's report made it clear:
No assassins.
No outsiders.
No escape attempt.
They had killed themselves.
Fury read the file only once.
Although it was disappointing, it made sense.
Men like Malick and Pierce did not fear death.
They feared exposure.
They feared interrogation.
They feared their legacy being erased by their own confessions.
Men like them believed that as long as the Hydra ideal survived somewhere in the world, so too would their significance.
But Fury looked at their photos and saw something else.
Cowards.
He could have taken action to capture them using his own people, and on any other day he absolutely would have. But Tony's report about the disappearance of the Winter Soldiers from the cryo chambers in Sokovia changed everything. If he moved too openly and those unpredictable, brainwashed weapons appeared out of nowhere, even he wouldn't survive long enough to give a final order. And if Fury died at the wrong moment, everything they had built to expose Hydra would collapse in an instant.
Hill stood beside him. "Their deaths are already fueling conspiracy theories."
"Good," Fury said quietly. "Let the world debate what cowards do when cornered."
Hill hesitated. "Sir… what about the Winter Soldiers? If they're not in Siberia, someone moved them. Someone still has them."
Fury didn't look away from the screen.
"Once Zola's real base is found, the Soldiers won't stay hidden for long. Zola kept records of everything Hydra touched. Find the AI, and we find their new location."
Hill nodded slowly, reassured but still uneasy.
She asked, "What happens next?"l
Fury exhaled, long and controlled.
"Next, we take the war underground again. Hydra thinks the world's chaos protects them."
He looked at the analog monitor displaying Tony's last encrypted update from Stark Tower.
"But they forgot one thing."
Hill waited.
Fury's voice hardened to steel.
"Tony Stark is hunting their ghost."
Hill frowned. "You think he'll find Zola?"
"He'll either find him," Fury said, "or he'll burn half the planet looking."
He turned away from the screens.
"And I'm counting on him to do exactly that."