"How much longer until our pajama boy gets here?"
On the top floor of the Avengers Tower, Tony asked how long it would be until Peter arrived. Hank Pym, the Ant-Man, who couldn't understand why a meeting was even necessary, just wanted to get back to his lab. "He should be here soon, shouldn't he? He's a student, right? Is there any meeting that he absolutely has to attend?"
"This meeting can't happen without him. Look, even the Hulk is here, sitting on the floor, waiting for everyone to arrive." Tony gestured to the Hulk, who was indeed sitting on the floor. "That should tell you how much of a hassle today's meeting is going to be."
"Stupid meeting, stupid things," the Hulk offered his sharp commentary.
"Just be patient, everyone." It was Captain America who finally smoothed things over. "If Tony is being this serious, then it must be something important."
He was right. If Tony Stark was being this serious, something big must have happened.
Wearing his black suit, Peter landed smoothly in the courtyard outside and came inside. As soon as he entered, Tony snapped his fingers, and a series of holograms appeared, making everything look normal from the outside. Then, one by one, protective walls rose up, trapping everyone inside. Of course, they weren't really trapped; the Hulk was there, after all.
Peter looked at everyone with a puzzled expression. Seeing that they were all equally clueless, Tony began to explain. "Don't look so surprised, kid. I'm just doing what you told me to do. I've turned off JARVIS, activated the full-scale defenses, and cut off all electromagnetic signals, except for the arc reactor in my chest. And all of this is for—"
Tony took the super-soldier serum vial out of the safe and placed it on the table. Captain America instantly stood up. "HYDRA."
"That's right, Cap. Surprise?" Tony smirked sarcastically. "HYDRA is still alive. They haven't been idle during the seventy years you were asleep. This vial was stolen from Eastern Europe by one of Peter's... friends. It's HYDRA's legacy from the former Soviet Union. And guess what they did with this HYDRA serum after it was smuggled into the United States?"
"They called it Soviet serum and turned it into Soviet serum for illegal human experiments. What does that tell you?"
Tony's analysis hit Captain America like a sledgehammer. He let out a sigh that everyone could feel the pain of.
"HYDRA has already infiltrated the United States."
"And there might be more than one of these projects," Peter added. "The spider that bit me, the symbiote on my body—these are all new super-soldier projects being researched by the U.S. military, and there's a high probability that they were spearheaded by HYDRA."
Even the Hulk understood now. "Hmph, bad guys went into a bad country and did even worse things."
"And it gets even more complicated, Cap. Remember your old friend, the Human Torch? His body disappeared, and then it reappeared decades later. And when our little Spider-Man went to Madripoor, he was standing with Weapon X, another U.S. military super-soldier program."
In this absolutely secure environment, Tony came to a very clear conclusion.
"The country's entire super-soldier program is compromised. Or to put it more bluntly, every super-soldier created by this country, unless they're an accidental result like Peter, could be a HYDRA soldier."
Captain America was silent for a long time. It wasn't just him; everyone in the room was silent for a while. Hank, however, seemed to have remembered something. "Wait, S.H.I.E.L.D. also has its own super-soldier program..."
"That's not safe either," Tony said with a sense of helplessness, then took out a stack of photos. "Remember the Thunderbolts? Fury didn't trust us, so he went solo. But it seems like not only S.H.I.E.L.D., but others don't trust us either. Rhodey sent me these. The Pentagon is recruiting for its own Avengers."
Captain America took the photos and looked at Tony, signaling for him to continue.
"Jack Hart. They call him Jack of Hearts. His father, Philip, invented a highly efficient liquid fuel called 'Fluid Zero.' A certain company decided to steal it, killed his father in front of him, and pushed him into the fuel. After the explosion, he became a pure energy being and needs a containment suit to survive. He has been under the military's supervision."
After introducing the person in the first photo, Tony showed the second one, a completely yellow lightning bolt, but in a human shape.
"Miguel Santos. A maintenance worker at a gamma lab in Arizona, an electrician. He was maintaining an electrical box during the gamma explosion that created the Hulk and mutated into a living lightning bolt. Some call him 'Living Lightning'; others just call him 'Zack.' He's been locked in an insulated room since '03."
The third photo was of a black armored suit flying in the sky.
"Chris Powell. He was just a kid when he accidentally got his hands on a suit of alien armor. The U.S. military took him from his corrupt cop father and spent over a decade training him to be a killing machine. 'Darkhawk.' How American."
And finally, Citizen V.
Peter finally spoke up. "Is that Zemo?"
Captain America looked at Peter, and Peter explained, "In another world, Baron Zemo pretended to be the hero Citizen V and joined the Thunderbolts. He eventually incited the reformed villains to steal super hero data and then killed everyone. My suit transmitted all that data to JARVIS."
Tony immediately chimed in. "And I've isolated a portion of JARVIS's database until I can be sure that no one can modify JARVIS's programming. But this Citizen V is a robot developed by the U.S. military. At least for now, it's not a living person."
Captain America sighed once more. Zemo had died seventy years ago. He had seen Zemo die. But HYDRA was still alive, Jim Hammond was still alive, and even he himself was still alive.
"Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place," Captain America murmured, understanding Tony's point. He stood up and looked at the Avengers. "If we want to completely destroy HYDRA, we need to find all of its heads. Besides the people in this room, anyone could be a member of HYDRA. I need each of you to carefully find the people we can trust."
"If it can cut off one head and two more shall take its place, then we will cut off all of HYDRA's heads."