The HYDRA soldiers raised their weapons, but Logan was already moving. He drove his claws into the first guard's chest, the bone blades punching through ribs and lung tissue. The man's scream was cut short as Logan's other hand raked across his throat, opening his carotid artery in a spray of blood.
A fourth HYDRA soldier appeared from behind the equipment, automatic rifle already firing. The bullets hit Logan center mass, punching through his chest and back. Blood exploded from the exit wounds as Logan staggered.
Logan looked down at the holes in his chest, then back at the soldier. His lips pulled back in a feral snarl. "My turn."
The wounds began closing immediately, muscle and tissue knitting back together. Logan charged forward, roaring with pure rage. The soldier kept firing, bullets tearing through Logan's arms and shoulders, but he didn't slow down.
Logan's claws punched through the soldier's rifle, splitting the barrel. His other hand drove up under the man's chin, bone blades erupting through the top of his skull. The soldier twitched once, then went limp.
Logan spun toward the second guard, who was fumbling with his rifle. The claws went in under the man's ribcage and up into his heart. Logan twisted his wrist, shredding the organ. The guard's eyes went wide, then vacant.
The third soldier turned to run. Logan's claws caught him between the shoulder blades, punching through his spine. The man dropped face-first, paralyzed but still conscious as Logan stepped over his twitching body.
Grant ducked under another guard's swing and came up with a devastating uppercut that lifted the man off his feet. The guard hit the wall and slumped down, unconscious. But Grant kept glancing at Logan, his boxer's instincts telling him to stay clear of the man with claws.
"Logan," Steve called out, concerned. "You all right?"
Logan retracted his claws with visible effort, leaving bloody holes in his knuckles that immediately began to close. "Yeah," he said, his voice rough. "Better than ever."
"Who are you people?" the technician demanded, backing toward an alarm panel.
A HYDRA guard raised his rifle and fired. Steve dove behind a heavy laboratory table as bullets chewed through the air where he'd been standing. The rounds sparked off metal equipment and shattered glass beakers.
"We're the good guys," Steve replied, advancing on the technician. "And we're shutting this down."
The technician lunged for the alarm. Steve threw his shield. The triangular prop spun through the air and caught the man in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending him crashing into the equipment panel. Electricity arced across his body as he screamed and went limp.
Steve ran over and pulled his shield from where it had clattered to the floor beside the unconscious technician.
Bucky, still unsteady from whatever drugs they'd given him, grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray and started cutting Rock's zip-ties. His hands shook slightly, but he worked fast.
"About damn time," Rock muttered as his restraints fell away. "Thought you boys were gonna leave us here to rot."
Bucky moved to free the other prisoners. As the zip-ties fell away, chaos erupted.
Little Sure Shot grabbed a fallen guard's rifle and checked the chamber. "Still got ammo," he said with grim satisfaction.
Bulldozer picked up a steel chair and brought it down on a HYDRA technician's back. The man screamed and collapsed, his spine likely broken.
Wildman found a combat knife on one of the dead guards. He tested the edge with his thumb, drawing blood. "Sharp enough," he muttered, then spotted a technician trying to crawl toward the exit. Wildman grabbed the man by his hair and dragged him back.
"Where you going, doc?" Wildman asked with a savage grin. "We're just getting started."
Four-Eyes adjusted his glasses and picked up a clipboard, then drove the metal corner into a guard's kidney. The man collapsed, convulsing.
Logan cornered a HYDRA officer who'd been supervising the interrogations. The man raised his hands, stammering in German.
"Bitte, bitte! Ich habe nur Befehle befolgt!"(Please, please! I was only following orders!)the officer pleaded, backing against the wall. "Ich habe Familie! Meine Frau, meine Kinder!"(I have family! My wife, my children!)
"I don't speak Nazi," Logan growled, then drove his fist into the man's stomach. As the officer doubled over, Logan grabbed his head and slammed it into the concrete wall.
"Nein! Nein! Bitte!"(No! No! Please!)the officer screamed.
Logan slammed his head again. The wall cracked.
"Gnade! Ich flehe Sie an!"(Mercy! I beg you!)
A third impact. The man's skull didn't crack, but his pleas stopped.
Grant found himself facing two guards who'd drawn knives. They circled him like predators.
"Come on then," Grant said, raising his fists.
The first guard lunged. Grant stepped inside the knife thrust, caught the man's wrist, and twisted. Bone snapped. The knife clattered to the floor. Grant's right cross caved in the guard's cheekbone.
The second guard tried to slash at Grant's back. Grant spun, caught the man's knife hand, and drove his elbow into the guard's temple. The man dropped like a stone.
The last three HYDRA guards, seeing their comrades dead or dying, ran toward Wilhelm. They quickly cut his restraints with desperate, shaking hands.
"Wilhelm! You must help us!" one of them pleaded in accented English. "Kill these terrorists! They are here to destroy our work!"
"Please!" another guard begged. "You are strong! You can stop them!"
Wilhelm looked down at the frightened guards, then at Steve and his team. His perfect features showed confusion and conflict.
"No," Wilhelm said quietly. "I won't kill them."
"But they are enemies!" the first guard insisted. "They want to stop us from saving lives!"
Wilhelm's gaze moved around the laboratory. The restraints that had held him—not medical equipment, but torture devices. The Allied prisoners who looked at HYDRA not with gratitude, but with fear and hatred. The weapons scattered throughout the room—not healing tools, but instruments of death.
His eyes fell on a folder that had been knocked open during the fight. Photographs spilled across the floor. Wilhelm knelt and picked one up. It showed a man strapped to a table, his chest cut open, his face twisted in agony. The man was still alive in the photo.
Wilhelm's hands shook as he picked up another photo. A woman with electrodes attached to her head, her mouth open in a silent scream. Another showed children in cages, their eyes empty of hope.
"Mein Gott," he whispered, the German words coming naturally despite his fractured memories.
Through the laboratory's high windows, he could see the destruction outside—buildings burning, explosions lighting up the night sky. This wasn't a medical facility under attack. This was a weapons factory being destroyed, and the people doing the destroying were trying to save the innocent.
Wilhelm stood slowly, the photographs falling from his trembling hands. He looked at the needle marks on his arms—not from medical treatment, but from forced blood extraction. The drugs they'd given him whenever he asked questions. The way the prisoners flinched when HYDRA guards approached.
"They're not the enemies," Wilhelm said, his voice growing stronger as understanding dawned. "They're trying to get their people back. These men..." he gestured to the Allied prisoners, "they're not terrorists. They're soldiers. Good soldiers who were captured and tortured."
He turned to look at Steve, seeing him clearly for the first time. Not as an enemy, but as a leader trying to save his people.
"You lied to me," Wilhelm said, turning back to the guards. "About everything. The medical research. The saving lives. The aircraft crash." His voice cracked with the weight of realization. "There was no crash, was there? You did something to me. Something terrible."
The guards stared at him in shock. "Wilhelm, you don't understand—"
"I understand enough," Wilhelm interrupted, his divine nature breaking through Mephisto's conditioning like sunlight through storm clouds. "You take people. You hurt them. You experiment on them. And you made me complicit in it."
The first guard raised his rifle toward Steve. Wilhelm's hand shot out, crushing the weapon's barrel like paper.
"I said no killing," Wilhelm said, but his voice now carried the authority of something far beyond human.
"Wilhelm!" the guard screamed. "What are you doing?"
Wilhelm grabbed all three guards, lifting them off the ground with casual ease. His grip tightened.
"You've caused enough suffering," he said simply.
The sound of snapping bones echoed through the laboratory.
Wilhelm dropped the bodies and turned to Steve, his face set with cold determination.
"I want nothing to do with this place anymore," he said, looking around the laboratory with disgust. "HYDRA lied to me. Used me. Made me complicit in..." He gestured at the photographs scattered on the floor. "This."
He looked at Steve with something approaching respect. "You came here to save your people. That's something I can understand, even if I can't remember who I used to be."
Peter and Ted moved to G.I. Robot's examination table while Steve helped Wilhelm. They began disconnecting the cables attached to the android's chest cavity.
G.I. Robot's optical sensors suddenly blazed to life, scanning the laboratory. His head turned toward the bodies scattered across the floor.
"WELL, I'LL BE DAMNED!" G.I. Robot announced with mechanical enthusiasm. "YOU BOYS STARTED THE NAZI-KILLING PARTY WITHOUT ME! THAT'S JUST RUDE!"
His optical sensors focused on Steve, scanning his transformed physique. "CAPTAIN AMERICA? IS THAT REALLY YOU, SIR? YOU'VE... BULKED UP SINCE THE STARK EXPO."
Steve grinned despite their circumstances. "Good to see you too, G.I. Permission to resume killing Nazis is granted, soldier."
"OUTSTANDING!" G.I. Robot sat up on the table, his internal systems rapidly coming online. As he stood, it was clear the HYDRA scientists had modified him—his frame was more human-sized now, less bulky than his original construction. "THEY GAVE ME SOME MODIFICATIONS, BUT I'VE STILL GOT PLENTY OF FIGHT LEFT!"
G.I. Robot's optical sensors suddenly fixed on Azzuri, studying his tactical gear and weapons. "AND WHO MIGHT YOU BE? YOU'RE NOT WEARING A NAZI UNIFORM, BUT I'VE LEARNED NOT TO TRUST APPEARANCES."
Without saying a word, Azzuri reached up and removed his panther mask, revealing his distinctly African features.
G.I. Robot processed this for a moment. "FAIR POINT, SIR. APOLOGIES FOR THE SUSPICION."
"Who the hell is that?" Bulldozer asked, staring at Azzuri.
"Yeah, and what's with the fancy armor?" Wildman added.
"I'll explain later," Steve said quickly, noting the time pressure they were under.
But their reunion was cut short as the facility's lights suddenly went out, plunging them into darkness. Emergency lighting flickered on moments later, bathing everything in ominous red. Somewhere in the distance, alarms began blaring.
"What the hell?" Logan growled.
"Self-destruct," Azzuri said grimly, his enhanced senses detecting the subtle vibrations of explosives being armed throughout the facility. "Schmidt's covering his tracks."
"How long do we have?" Steve asked.
Before Azzuri could answer, the laboratory's main doors burst open. Baron Heinrich Zemo strode in flanked by a squad of HYDRA's elite soldiers, their weapons trained on the group. Unlike the regular guards they'd encountered, these men moved with the precision and confidence of special forces.
Zemo wore an elaborate uniform that combined HYDRA military efficiency with aristocratic grandeur. The deep purple fabric was reinforced with tactical armor at key points, while golden trim and family crests spoke to centuries of noble heritage. His distinctive purple mask gleamed under the emergency lighting, and when he moved, there was something subtly wrong about his speed and coordination—as if he was operating at the edge of human capability.
G.I. Robot's arms began to reconfigure, mechanical components shifting and clicking as they transformed into twin machine guns, but Sergeant Rock quickly grabbed his shoulder.
"Wait," Rock said quietly. "They've got us outnumbered. Let's see what they want first."
"Captain Rogers," Zemo said, his voice carrying aristocratic authority. "Baron Heinrich Zemo. I've been looking forward to meeting the famous American super soldier."
"Wish I could say the same," Steve replied, shifting his stance to a defensive position.
"Oh, but you should be honored," Zemo continued, slowly circling the group like a predator sizing up its prey. "You're about to witness the future of human evolution. Enhanced soldiers who make your little serum enhancement look like a child's toy."
Zemo reached to his side and drew an ornate sword, its blade gleaming under the emergency lighting. The weapon bore the craftsmanship of generations, clearly a family heirloom passed down through the noble Zemo bloodline.
"Perfected enhancement," Zemo replied with obvious pride, testing the sword's balance. "Your serum made you stronger and faster, Captain, but it maintained your human limitations. My process eliminates those entirely."
"By turning you into a monster," Wilhelm said, stepping forward. Despite his confusion about his own past, his moral compass remained intact.
"By evolving beyond petty human concerns," Zemo corrected. "But you wouldn't understand, would you, Wilhelm? Or should I say... Balder?"
Wilhelm's face went blank. "I don't know what that means."
"Of course you don't," Zemo said with cruel amusement. "Our supernatural allies were very thorough in their work."
Steve's mind raced. Supernatural allies? What kind of forces was HYDRA working with?
"I promise you this, Captain," Zemo said, his voice carrying cold certainty. "None of you will leave this facility alive. Your rescue mission ends here." He raised his sword in a formal salute. "But I am a gentleman. I'll fight you like a real man, blade against shield."
The Baron moved.
Steve had only faced one enhanced individual with this kind of speed before when Azzuri had tested him and his team in the forest. But even the Wakandan king hadn't moved with this level of lethal precision. Zemo crossed the twenty feet between them in less than a second, his sword driving toward Steve's chest.
As they clashed, the first explosion rocked the facility. The ceiling cracked, raining concrete dust. A support beam groaned and twisted.
Steve got his shield up just in time. Zemo's blade struck the painted steel with a sharp clang. The impact drove Steve backward, his boots sliding on the laboratory floor.
"Impressive reflexes," Zemo said, landing gracefully. "But ultimately inadequate."
Azzuri started moving toward Steve, his enhanced agility allowing him to navigate the collapsing laboratory, but another explosion, closer this time, brought down a massive section of the laboratory wall. Concrete and steel beams crashed between them, separating Steve, Peter, and Bucky from the others.
"Steve!" Azzuri called out, his voice carrying over the chaos. "Rogers!" Sergeant Rock shouted from the other side of the debris. "Cap!" Ted Knight yelled. "Steve!" Logan's voice cut through the noise. "We're coming!" Wildcat called, but another rumble indicated more collapses were imminent.
"GO!" Steve shouted to his team through the dust and debris. "Get out of here!"
"GO!" Peter screamed back at the others from Steve's side of the collapse. "GET OUT NOW!"
"We're not leaving you!" Azzuri called back, but a third explosion brought down more ceiling between them.
Zemo attacked again, this time feinting high before going low. Steve tried to adjust, but Zemo's enhanced speed made him seem to teleport between positions. The sword's edge sliced across Steve's ribs, tearing through fabric and drawing blood.
On the other side of the collapsed wall, Peter and Bucky found themselves facing Zemo's enhanced soldiers. Peter raised Kane's pistol and started firing, each shot precise and deadly. But his ammunition was limited.
"I'm stronger than you," Zemo taunted, driving an elbow toward Steve's face. "Faster than you. More durable than you."
Steve ducked the elbow and swung his shield in a backhand arc. Zemo caught it easily with one hand, his enhanced strength allowing him to stop the attack cold.
"Bucky!" Peter called out, ejecting his empty magazine. "I'm out!"
The facility shook again as more explosives detonated in the lower levels. They were running out of time.
"Your enhancement was a prototype," Zemo continued, wrenching the shield from Steve's grip and tossing it aside like a toy. "Mine was perfected."
Steve dove away as Zemo's sword slashed through the air where his head had been. He rolled behind a bank of laboratory equipment, buying himself precious seconds to think.
Around the laboratory, chaos was erupting. Zemo's soldiers had engaged the others, but these weren't ordinary HYDRA troops. They moved with enhanced coordination and strength, their weapons firing energy blasts that could punch through steel.
Azzuri flowed between the soldiers like liquid death, his claws finding gaps in their armor, but even his enhanced abilities were being tested. These enemies were faster and stronger than anything they'd faced before.
Logan and Grant fought back-to-back, their combined experience allowing them to hold their ground against superior numbers. But it was clear they were being overwhelmed.
"TAKE COVER!" G.I. Robot bellowed, flames erupting from his hands as he engaged two enhanced soldiers simultaneously. "THESE AREN'T NORMAL HUMANS!"
"No kidding!" Ted shouted back, diving behind an overturned table as energy blasts sizzled overhead.
Peter had found cover behind a support pillar and was picking his shots carefully, Kane's pistol barking as he tried to find weak points in the enhanced soldiers' armor. But conventional bullets seemed to have minimal effect.
Wilhelm, despite his confusion about his identity, had entered the fight with devastating effectiveness. His divine strength allowed him to literally punch through the enhanced soldiers' defenses, but his reluctance to kill meant he was holding back.
Steve emerged from behind his cover as Zemo approached, the Baron's enhanced speed making him seem to glide across the floor.
"You're brave, Captain," Zemo said, extending his claws again. "I'll give you that. But bravery won't save you when you're fundamentally outclassed."
Steve feinted left, then dove right, retrieving his shield from where Zemo had tossed it. The lightweight prop felt reassuring in his hands, even though he knew it was barely adequate against superhuman opponents.
Zemo stepped back from Steve's attacks, breathing hard. He drew a pistol from his harness.
"If close combat won't work, perhaps distance will be more effective."
The Baron fired three quick shots. Steve got his shield up, and the bullets ricocheted off the painted steel. In the confined space of the laboratory, filled with equipment and chemical storage containers, the ricochets became unpredictable.
The first bullet sparked off electrical panels, sending sparks across the floor. The second shattered a container of some chemical compound, filling the air with smoke.
The third bullet struck a large glass vat labeled "KLEBSTOFF-X" in bold red letters.
The container exploded in a shower of glass and amber liquid. The substance splashed across half the laboratory, coating equipment and floor in a thick compound that immediately began to smoke and hiss.
Zemo had turned at the sound of shattering glass, pivoting just as the explosion occurred. The timing was terrible. The chemical splash caught him straight across the face, the amber liquid coating his mask completely before dripping down his neck and chest.
For a moment, there was silence. Then Zemo touched his mask where the liquid covered it.
His fingers came away smoking.
"What" he started, then the burning began.
Steve watched as Zemo's posture crumbled. The Baron's hand flew to his face as he realized something was wrong.
The adhesive compound was designed to bond instantly with any organic material it touched. Beneath Zemo's purple mask, the chemical was eating through fabric and flesh, fusing them together. The reaction generated heat.
"Oh God," Peter whispered, his face going pale as he watched Zemo's fingers probe the mask's edges. "It's burning through."
Zemo's hands flew to his face as the burning got worse. He tried to pull the mask off, but it was already bonding to his skin. Steve could see the exact moment Zemo realized what was happening. His enhanced hearing picked up the Baron's sharp breath, followed by a sound like tearing fabric.
Except it wasn't fabric.
"No," Zemo whispered, then louder as panic set in: "No, no, NO!"
He clawed at the mask, his enhanced strength working against him. Each tug brought a wet, tearing sound that made Bucky flinch. The adhesive had gone deep, bonding fabric to skin, skin to muscle, muscle to bone.
"Jesus Christ," Bucky muttered, unable to look away. "It's fused to him."
Steam began rising from beneath the mask's edges. The chemical reaction was getting worse, generating more heat. Zemo's breathing became ragged gasps.
Then he tried to rip the mask off with both hands.
The scream that followed wasn't human. It started low, like an animal in a trap, then rose to a shriek. Steve had heard men die in battle, had heard the wounded cry out, but this was something else.
Zemo fell to his knees, both hands still clawing at his face. Steve could see dark stains spreading beneath the purple fabric where blood was seeping through. With each attempt to remove the mask, more damage was done.
"Stop," Peter said, his voice barely audible. "Stop, you're making it worse."
But Zemo was beyond reason. The pain had driven him past rational thought. His enhanced body kept him conscious through agony that would have dropped a normal man.
The smell hit them then. Burning flesh mixed with the chemical tang of the adhesive. It was a smell none of them would forget.
"GET IT OFF!" Zemo screamed, his voice cracking. "SOMEONE GET IT OFF!"
His soldiers rushed forward, but even they hesitated. How do you help someone when touching them might make it worse?
"Sir, we need to" one of them started.
Zemo's response was another shriek as he made one final attempt to tear the mask away. The sound of ripping flesh was audible even over the explosions shaking the facility. Dark liquid, blood mixed with the amber adhesive, began dripping from beneath the mask's edges.
Steve felt sick. This wasn't victory. This was horror.
"Oh my God," Peter breathed, his hands shaking as he lowered his pistol. "What did we do?"
"We didn't do this," Bucky said, but his voice was hollow. "He shot at us. It was an accident."
But Steve could see it in all their faces. They would carry this moment with them forever. The sight of a man being transformed into something else by pure chance and chemical cruelty.
Zemo's screams began to change, becoming weaker. His enhanced body was trying to go into shock, but the serum wouldn't let him escape. He was trapped in full awareness of what was happening to him.
The two soldiers finally grabbed their commander under the arms, lifting him as gently as they could. Even that small movement caused fresh screams.
"Medical team to extraction point!" one shouted into his radio, but his voice carried no hope.
"Sir, we're getting you out of here!" the other said, though Steve could hear the soldier's voice breaking.
But Zemo was beyond hearing them now. He was lost in a world of pain where nothing existed except the fire consuming his face.
As his soldiers carried him toward the exit, Zemo's legs dragged behind him. His head lolled to one side, and Steve caught a glimpse of something that made his stomach turn. Dark wetness seeping through the mask.
The last thing they heard as debris crashed between them was that broken moaning, growing fainter as Zemo was carried away into the night. The sound of a man who had discovered that some pain becomes part of you forever.
Steve stood in the smoke and dust, shield hanging loose in his grip, staring at the spot where Zemo had fallen. The amber adhesive was still smoking on the laboratory floor, still eating through whatever it touched.
"We need to go," Peter said quietly, but none of them moved.
They had come here to rescue their friends, to stop HYDRA's weapons program. They had succeeded. But victory felt hollow when it came at the cost of witnessing something that would haunt their dreams.
"Steve," Bucky said, his voice gentle. "We need to go. The building's coming down."
Steve nodded, then moved toward the collapsed wall separating them from the others. He could hear voices on the other side, muffled by concrete and twisted steel.