In the mysterious forest, the figure claiming to be Steve Rogers has been tied up and is dangling from a tree branch by his feet. Another man suspended next to him says he saw a 'goddess' by the lake who is virtually omnipotent but still needs his help. He asks Rogers to help him get back to the goddess, but then the figure claiming to be Johann "Red Skull" Shmidt arrives and drags him away. Shmidt warns Rogers that his turn will come soon.
In New York City, Claire "Night Nurse" Temple climbs to the top of the Empire State Building to meet up with Tandy "Dagger" Bowen. Bowen has been providing light to the island of Manhattan as it languishes beneath the Darkforce Dome, but she is out of energy and her light has gone out. Temple says that she needs a little light to finish the last part of the ascent, but Bowen says she can't do it. However, Tyrone "Cloak" Johnson is with them and begs Bowen for just a little more light. Bowen manages to produce enough that Temple can climb up to Bowen. She gives Bowen an injection of something to energize her so she can continue to produce light. Johnson expresses concern that Bowen is going to kill herself trying to keep the city illuminated, and Temple says that the heroes have their best doctor working on it. Meanwhile, Stephen "Doctor" Strange visits several collectors of magical items, of which one called the Librarian says that Strange threw all the collectors out of his magic guild so they're surprised Strange is now seeking their help. Strange says that things have changed and he's looking for a spell to create light.
Elsewhere in Manhattan, Matt "Daredevil" Murdock approaches several thugs and knocks them out. Then Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk walks up and sarcastically says that Murdock has defeated his goons and saved them all from his horrible plan, which turns out to be providing food and other supplies to a group of survivors. Murdock asks why Fisk is acting like a philanthropist, providing aid and shelter to people all over the city and asking for nothing in return. Fisk says that he's playing a long game: he expects the city to somehow escape the Dome, and when that happens, he wants everyone to know that it was he—Wilson Fisk—who kept them alive. Then they will trust him to lead them into the future. He walks off, singing the song "Tomorrow" from Annie.
In the forest, the still-bound Rogers demands to know where his friends are, but Shmidt says that he shouldn't worry about that. He expresses surprise that Rogers really doesn't remember him from back during the Second World War. Rogers insists he doesn't remember Shmidt, so Shmidt says he is the man that put Rogers where he is, which he describes as Hell. He says that they're both just ghosts, fading elements of a massive war who ultimately defeated each other and became trapped in the endless woods. Shmidt adds that he's learned to live in the woods but doubts Rogers can do the same, and says he can help Rogers to escape. He then says that the only real escape is death and attacks Rogers with a flaming spiked club.
At Natasha "Black Widow" Romanoff's hideout in Maryland, Nadia "Wasp" Pym says she wants to quit the team. The other young members of Romanoff's group, Miles "Spider-Man" Morales, Joaquin "Falcon" Torres, Viv Vision, and Riri "Ironheart" Williams, try to talk her out of it, but she is adamant. She says they only joined with Romanoff to stand by Morales and to stop Romanoff from assassinating Rogers, but instead Romanoff has corrupted them. Under her guidance they've prepared for or actually conducted assassinations and torture, and now they agreed to work with the monstrous Ophelia "Viper" Sarkissian. Torres and Viv try to tel Pym that their situation is complex and they can't remain morally pure, but Pym doesn't back down. She says she knows that the Red Room turns people into monsters and she's already escaped it once; she doesn't want to go through it again even if it's to save America. She also says she won't let the others be corrupted either. Morales says he'll talk to Romanoff and try to persuade her to back off from the more morally grey things she's been having them do.
Morales goes to Romanoff, but Romanoff just says that everything she's done has been necessary. She points out that their last mission went perfectly, and Morales thinks back to that mission, which involved rescuing an old man hooked up to extensive life-support equipment. He asks who the man was and she refuses to tell him. He insists, saying she needs to give them something or compromise in some way, and Romanoff says what she's giving them are the tools to survive in the ruined world. She tells him that the world fell apart because her generation was too weak, petty, and selfish to protect it properly, but she'll at least teach the others how to protect themselves. She adds that the world will get a lot worse but Morales cuts her off and says there might still be a happy ending. He says that the rest of the superheroes might be able to reassemble the Cosmic Cube and fix Rogers, and he's certain that Romanoff would really prefer for that to be the case rather than her having to shoot Rogers after all.
At the Mount, where the Underground resistance is basing, HYDRA warships circle overhead. Rogers tells Bruce "Incredible Hulk" Banner that the so-called superheroes must pay for their sins. He repeats the claims that the Hank Pym / Ultron AI made previously, specifically that the heroes got too obsessed with their petty pride, power, and glory, and so stopped caring about the many failures and disasters they committed. They tried to bury the truth of all the monstrous things they did, Rogers continues, but ultimately will not be able to escape paying for what they've done. Meanwhile, Thor Odinson, Wanda "Scarlet Witch" Maximoff (possessed by Chthon), and Vision attack the base.
The Tony Stark AI tells the other superheroes gathered in the base that HYDRA can't get in; their shields are strong enough to keep out everything HYDRA has thrown at them so far, including Odinson, Maximoff, and Vision. He then says that they must have a traitor in their ranks. As Rogers tells Banner that the heroes' fall was inevitable because they knew their reputations were built on lies and secretly hated themselves and each other for their corruption, the Underground heroes begin to argue over who the mole is. Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse accuses Pietro "Quicksilver" Maximoff, who keeps disappearing during fights to search for his sister. She posits that HYDRA may have promised to exorcise Chthon if Pietro serves them. While Banner expresses shock that Rogers joined HYDRA and Rogers says he has no time to explain. Pietro accuses Morse of being the mole, saying he's noticed her sneaking off to make calls. Morse admits to calling Maria Hill, which shocks the others since Hill has become an anti-HYDRA terrorist, but Morse just says she was convincing Hill to hold off on her attacks so as to give Morse and her team a chance to collect the Cosmic Cube shards and fix Rogers peacefully. She blasts the Stark AI for failing to find the Cube shards, at which point Raz "Giant-Man" Malhotra reveals that the Stark AI never had a Cosmic Cube detector; he just lied that he did so the others wouldn't question him blindly following Rick Jones' notes as to where the Cube shards were. Morse flips out and yells that Hercules is still in the infirmary because of the Stark AI's wild-goose chase, and Pietro wonders if the Stark AI might have been hacked to be the mole himself. At that moment, though, Scott "Ant-Man" Lang confesses that he was the traitor.
Rogers tells Banner that he was treated by the others with monstrous cruelty; they first shipped him to another planet just to be safe from his Hulk side, and when that didn't work, they had Clint "Hawkeye" Barton shoot him dead. He muses that the so-called heroes hate everything strong enough not to bow to them, and Banner is one of the strongest creatures in existence. He offers to release Banner and allow him to attack the 'heroes' who mistreated him. Banner, however, refuses, saying that as much as he hates the other heroes, he still knows that HYDRA are evil and he won't support them. Even if the heroes will just attack him again as soon as the HYDRA threat is neutralized, he'll still fight for the heroes because that's the right thing to do. Rogers clarifies, however, that he was talking to Banner's Hulk side and not Banner himself, and then the Hulk seizes control of Banner's body.
In the Underground, Pietro attacks Lang, who protests that HYDRA found his daughter Cassandra in Paris and said they would kill her if he didn't sell out the other heroes. Then the others see Hulk dropping on top of their base on security feeds. Hulk smashes his way in, and both the HYDRA Avengers (Odinson, Wanda Maximoff, and Vision) and regular HYDRA troops pour in after him. Furthermore, the sight of Hulk makes Barton collapse in shame. However, Ben "The Thing" Grimm bursts in and attacks Hulk, and Morse manages to get Barton away from the fight. Barton sobs that Rogers was right about the heroes being weak and corrupted, and that they deserve to fall now as the sins they tried to cover up come back to haunt them. Morse says that maybe the heroes deserve to die but there's a lot of innocent people in the base that don't. This inspires Barton, and he begins directing an evacuation.
Malhotra takes Rayshaun "Patriot" Lucas to a laboratory and reveals a bunch of android Avengers based off of Hank Pym's technology. He sends the android Avengers at Hulk while the other heroes cover the evacuation. As the civilians exit the base and run to the escape planes, Thor Odinson blocks their way, but he then stands aside and allows the civilians to leave. The heroes begin to leave as well but Morse notes that the Tony Stark AI hasn't escaped the base yet. Back inside the base, the Stark AI reaches the room where they were storing the Cosmic Cube shards and bursts in, only for Rogers to attack Stark with Ultron-inspired technology and reveal that he already took the shards. The technology prevents the Stark AI from dematerializing, so the two fight even as Hulk finishes off the android Avengers. The resurrection process used on Banner then wears off and he dies, collapsing to the floor hard enough that he drops the ceiling on the Stark AI and Rogers. This pins the Stark AI but mostly misses Rogers, who proceeds to stand over the Stark AI and say he's happy that he's facing the 'real' Stark because it would have been a lot of trouble just to kill some kind of copy. The Stark AI triggers something called the 'Clean Slate' protocol and then apologizes to Rogers, saying that he knew he hadn't won anything even when his side 'won' the first superhuman Civil War and Rogers was assassinated. He says he vowed not to make the same mistake again but then proceeded to do so over and over, and even now in this latest crisis, when Stark tried as hard as he could to be like Rogers and save the world, he failed. He sighs that he can build incredible machines but can't make himself into someone as good as Rogers, then begs Rogers to understand that Stark tried so hard to save Rogers because Rogers was his hero, and that he's sorry he failed.
A HYDRA technician tells Elisa "Madame HYDRA" Sinclair that there are unusual energy readings coming from the base. Sinclair bursts into the base and uses magic to banish Rogers just before the 'Clean Slate' self-destruct triggers and sets off a massive bomb, completely destroying the base. Sinclair is still in the base when it explodes and is presumably killed.
Back in Maryland, Romanoff hears a news report saying that the Underground base has been destroyed with no survivors. She pours herself a drink and cries as she sips it, then tells the others that HYDRA killed all the other heroes and their only chance left is to assassinate Rogers the next day.
Tropes:
- The Mole: Two. Morse is one for Maria Hill, and Lang is one for HYDRA.
