The real reason the Avengers had Came upon this particular Sokovian base with such speed and force wasn't just to eliminate another HYDRA cell.
Their intelligence pointed to something far more significant: Loki's Scepter, the powerful alien artifact, was here. HYDRA was using it for unknown, but undoubtedly sinister, purposes. That discovery had made this base their top priority.
Up above, in his command center, the screens showing the losing battle flashed red. Baron Strucker slammed his fist on a console.
"Deploy all remaining units!" he roared into the intercom. "Every soldier, every tank! Hold them back!" Then, turning to a hidden doorway, his face grim, he began his descent.
He moved quickly down a series of sterile corridors, heading towards the underground facility, towards the icy secret hidden below.
Outside, the sounds of battle raged. Explosions shook the ground, and the air crackled with energy. Iron Man, however, was focused on the fortress itself.
"Alright, Jarvis, let's peel this onion," Tony Stark quipped, his voice calm inside his metal suit despite the chaos.
After knowing what was powering the shield and how to bring it down with Jarvis' help, a few precise blasts and some clever maneuvering, the shield was down. "Bingo! We're in."
Iron Man swooped through the newly created opening, landing with a metallic thud in what looked like a main operating room. HYDRA soldiers immediately opened fire, their bullets bouncing harmlessly off his armor.
"Guys! Please we gotta talk this through," Tony commented, Though the opposition wasnt on keen to listen to the enemy Tony raised his palm.
Repulsor blasts shot out, sending the soldiers flying.
A few HYDRA researchers in white coats frantically tried to delete files from their computers, but a quick, non-lethal stun blast from Iron Man put a stop to that.
"Well… good talk."
"No, It wasn't."
"Jarvis, you're on clean-up duty. Grab every byte of data from these junk heaps," Tony instructed, his helmet optics scanning the room.
"And see if you can find another Hydra base or some of their plans. I bet there are some things he doesn't want us to see here." As Jarvis worked, Tony's eyes landed on an odd-looking section of the far wall.
It seemed too plain, too deliberately unremarkable. He walked over to it. "Please be a secret door, please be a secret door," he muttered, tapping various spots.
Finally, he pressed a section that gave a soft click, and a part of the wall hissed and slid inwards, revealing a dark passage. "Called it!"
Tony stepped through, his suit's lights cutting through the gloom. The passage led downwards, into the secret underground lab he had suspected.
It was colder here, and the air hummed with a different kind of energy. "Guys," he said into his comms, his voice echoing slightly, "I think I found something bigger down here. And it is literally bigger. Looks like their main R&D-slash-evil-lair department." He continued forward, his repulsors humming softly, ready for anything.
He moved past rows of strange equipment until he reached a central platform. And there it was. Sitting on a pedestal, pulsing with a faint blue light, was Loki's Scepter.
"Well, hello there, glow stick of destiny," Tony said, walking towards it. He reached out his armored hand, ready to retrieve the dangerous artifact.
Just as his fingertips were about to make contact, a presence flickered behind him. Before he could react, he felt a strange sensation.
A young woman, her fingers splayed, sent tendrils of red, ethereal energy towards Tony's head. The energy slipped past his helmet's defenses and into his mind.
Suddenly, Tony's vision twisted. Images, not his own, flashed before his eyes: destruction, fear, a dark future he couldn't quite grasp.
It was over in a moment. He stumbled back, gasping, his heart pounding. He shook his head, breathing heavily, a new, deeply unsettling look of understanding or perhaps dread etched on his face under the helmet. He looked around wildly, but there was no one there.
From the shadows behind some equipment, Wanda watched, a small, knowing smile on her lips. Her brother, Pietro, a blur of motion, was suddenly beside her.
"Time to go," he said, his voice quick and urgent. In a flash, he had scooped her up, and they were gone, vanishing from the lab as silently as they had appeared.
Tony, still shaken, focused on the task. "Armor up hand," he commanded, and a section of his gauntlet reinforced. He carefully took the Scepter. The blue gem pulsed faintly in his grip.
He was about to head back upwards, Scepter secure, when something caught his eye. Tucked away in a corner of the lab, almost hidden by shadows, was something out of the ordinary.
It was the ice-like capsule he had seen glimpses of on some of the data Jarvis was now decrypting. Curious, he approached it.
As he drew nearer, the internal glow illuminated what was inside. His breath hitched. It was a young man, suspended in the crystalline ice, eyes closed, looking deceptively peaceful. His hair was a shocking, brilliant white.
Tony stared for a long moment. Then, he activated his comms again. "Uh, Cap? You there?"
"Loud and clear, Tony. What's your status? Do you have the Scepter?" Steve Rogers' voice replied.
"Yeah, got the pointy stick. But, uh, you're not gonna believe this. I think I found your long-lost brother. The one you kept frozen?" Tony said, his usual humor laced with genuine surprise.
"Though, I think one of you must be adopted or something, 'cause this kid's got white hair. Like, really white. And, not gonna lie, he's Handsome... and that's coming from someone who has seen a lot of pretty woman and me myself being a handsome."
….
A/N: 1 More Left Boiis…
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