by Stuart Moore
“What you said.” A sly smile crept across Cage’s dark face. “Hendrick.”
“Zip it, Rockwell.”
The waitress arrived, bearing food. The four men set to it, as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“I still can’t believe Spider-Man,” Goliath said. “You think Tony Stark is controlling him or something? Through that new costume?”
“Tony wouldn’t stoop to that,” Cap said. “It wouldn’t satisfy his ego. He wants everyone to agree with him, to see the pure light of reason behind his actions.”
“And I know Peter. He’s impressionable.” Daredevil frowned. “That day in Stamford, I could already see he was under Tony’s thumb.”
“Strategically, it’s a brilliant move. Nobody’s guarded his secret identity more tightly than Spider-Man. His unmasking is a powerful message to all the costumes still sitting on the fence.”
Cap’s and Goliath’s phones beeped simultaneously. Cap glanced at the screen, rose quickly to his feet.
“’Sup?” Cage asked.
Goliath read aloud: “Petrochemical plant on fire, over by the river. Base says there’s three or four hundred people trapped inside.”
Cap intercepted the startled waitress. “Keep the change, ma’am. And thanks for a wonderful meal.”
She looked down at the hundred-dollar bill in her hand. “Wow. Thanks, Mister Hendrick.”
“Call me Brett.”
Cap gestured, and the rest of them followed him toward the back entrance. He thumbed a speed-dial number on his phone.
“Hawkeye, what’s your sitch?”
“Just tryin’ to train these kids. You want us on that call?”
“Yep. Bring everyone along.” Cap hung up, dialed another number. “Falc?”
“On my way. Got Tigra, Cloak, and Dagger with me.”
“Roger.”
Cage slammed open the door to the restaurant’s back alley. Strong smell of garbage and urine. Boarded-up windows on the houses behind.
“Emergency distress calls. Sneaking into alleys, changing into costume.” Goliath smiled, shrugging off his leather jacket. “I hate to say it, but I’m starting to enjoy this.”
GREEN smoke rose from the Geffen-Meyers petrochemical plant, dark and ominous in the twilight gloom. Cap could smell it from blocks away. The plant building faced the water, so details of the disaster were hard to make out from the street. A ring of local police cars surrounded the building, lights flashing.
Cap hastily arranged a rendezvous in a parking lot across the street. When everyone was assembled, he pulled Wiccan and Cloak aside. They both looked nervous, unsure.
“You two are our teleporters,” Cap said. “People may be dying inside the plant, and we can’t get past that line of cops any other way. Can you carry us all, between the two of you?”
Wiccan frowned. “I can get my crew in. Prob’ly two or three more.”
“Cloak?”
Cloak looked around, scared. Dagger, his girlfriend, took his hand.
“I’ll do it, sir.”
Cap, Tigra, Falcon, Wiccan, and the Young Avengers materialized inside first. The plant’s roof had been ripped off, and several explosions had apparently torn up the floor. Small fires raged, water spouted from severed pipes. Walls lay half-toppled, obscuring parts of the complex; one whole side of the building had been blasted open to the pier, where a loading dock lay splintered and destroyed, its stump falling off into the water. Green smoke wafted through the air, forming toxic patches all over.
“Man.” Tigra held a furry finger to her sensitive nose. “This place stinks.”
In the middle of the room, a dark shroud swirled into being. Cap tensed—and watched as Hawkeye, Daredevil, Cage, Goliath, and Dagger all tumbled out, shivering with intense cold.
“It’s okay,” Dagger said. “The chill will wear off soon.”
The shadow swirled about, resolved itself into the dark form of Cloak himself. He staggered, dazed for a moment. Dagger walked up before him, glowing, and held out her hands. Light blazed from her into Cloak’s tired form, vanishing into the darkness of his being. Revitalizing him.
Cap shook his head. Those two had nothing but each other; Cloak relied on Dagger for his very survival. How could you ask two young people like that to register, to turn over their entire lives to the government?
“All present,” Falcon said.
Daredevil bent down, picked up something from the floor. Cap turned to him.
“Silver dollar,” Daredevil said.
“Something’s wrong.” Cap’s eyes narrowed. “How many workers did the report say?”
“Three or four hundred.” Goliath frowned at a handheld analyzer. “But I’m not getting any radio signals out of this place at all—”
Goliath stopped dead, staring down at the floor.
Falcon fluttered up behind him, Cap close by. “What is it?”
Then they all saw it. A fallen wall-stone with the chiseled words:
GEFFEN-MEYERS
A DIVISION OF
STARK ENTERPRISES
“Emergency evac!” Cap yelled. “It’s a trap—”
Too late. Tranquilizer darts rained down out of the sky. Tigra leapt away, Falcon took to the air. Hawkeye notched an arrow in his bow, quicker than the eye could see.
But the tranquilizers only struck two members: Wiccan and Cloak.
“Tyrone!” Dagger screamed. She ran to Cloak, reached for his falling figure.
Cap whipped his head upward. Thirty feet up, silhouetted against the clouds, at least six heavy S.H.I.E.L.D. copters hung in the sky, their engines muffled by Stark stealth technology. One of the copters pivoted, and a gunman loomed into view on its side, moonlight flashing against his weapon’s nozzle.
“Of course it’s a trap. How else were we going to get you all in one place?”
Cap whirled, raising his shield. The gleaming figure of Iron Man wafted up over a shattered half-wall, his repulsor rays glowing with power.
Then Spider-Man was behind Tony, leaping and flashing his webs. “Don’t do it, Flags.”
Cap grimaced, motioned his people back. They fell in behind him and shrank back toward the open, river-facing side of the plant.
The rest of Tony Stark’s forces marched up behind their leader, looming into view through the slowly clearing green haze. Ms. Marvel. The massive She-Hulk. Three-quarters of the Fantastic Four: Reed and Sue Richards, and Ben Grimm, the Thing. Black Widow.
Dagger looked up from Cloak’s unmoving body. “What have you done to him?”
Spider-Man held up a hand. “Just a little tranquilizer, kid. To make sure nobody gets teleported away.” Spidey cocked his head, looked upward. “Skybird One, you got us covered?”
A gruff, filtered voice filled the air. “Oh yeah. Just give the word. Please give the word.”
Cap grimaced. He recognized the voice: his former “partner,” S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Axton.
Then Maria Hill’s voice cut in. “Mister Stark. We are in position and ready to end this—”
“We do this my way, Commander,” Tony said. “Or you can abort right now.”
Hill’s sigh was audible. “Director Hill to all airborne units. Hold your fire. Repeat, hold your fire and await further orders.”
All eyes were on Iron Man and Captain America now. Cap squared his shoulders and marched straight up to Tony Stark.
“Going soft, Tony?”
“We didn’t come here to arrest you, Cap.” Tony gestured upward, at the copters. “I’ve talked S.H.I.E.L.D. into offering you one final chance at amnesty.”
“You mean surrender. No thanks.”
“C’mon, Cap.” Spider-Man leapt up next to Tony. “When we fight each other, the only people who win are the bad guys. This goes against every principle you ever believed in.”
Cap stared at Spider-Man. The new costume, with its gleaming metal eyes, gave him a much less human countenance than ever before. Cap could almost picture the young man inside transforming, like an
insect in a cocoon, into a new version of Iron Man.
“Don’t talk to me about principles, Spider-Man. I saw your little stunt on TV. Is your Aunt May happy that the Vulture has her zip code now?”
Spider-Man clenched his fists. “Why don’t you ask the mommies and daddies in Stamford if they think Captain America’s still fighting the good fight?”
Spidey took a step toward Cap. Cap tensed, and the two men stared at each other for a long moment. Then Tony moved between them, slowly lifting his helmet up to reveal his face.
He looked very tired.
“Cap, please. I know you’re angry, and I know this is an enormous change from the way we’ve always worked. But we aren’t living in 1945 anymore.” Tony gestured behind Cap, addressing the assembled Resistance. “The public doesn’t want masks and secret identities. They want to feel safe when we’re around. We’ve lost their confidence, their respect. This is the only way to win it back.
“You’ve known me half my adult life, Cap. You know I wouldn’t do this unless I believed in it with all my heart. I don’t want to fight you—none of us does. All I ask…just let me tell you my grand plan for the twenty-first century.”
Reed Richards’ elongated head snaked through the air. “It really is extraordinary.”
Sue Richards, Cap noticed, was staring at her husband. She didn’t look happy. Neither did Ben Grimm.
“Five minutes.” Tony held out his metal-gauntleted hand. “Will you give me that?”
Cap turned to survey his troops. Cage looked very grim. Tigra’s eyes were wide, almost feral. Goliath had eased up to eight feet in height, but he was hanging back. Dagger still knelt over her fallen partner, and the Young Avengers had gathered around Wiccan’s limp form.
Daredevil leaned against a wall, alone. Flipping his newfound coin up and down, up and down.
Cap’s two closest lieutenants, Hawkeye and the Falcon, stood together. They both cocked their heads at him: Your play.
He turned back toward Tony. “Five minutes.”
“That’s all I need.”
Slowly, Cap reached out and clasped Tony’s hand. Tony’s gauntlet felt cold through Cap’s glove.
Spider-Man’s smile was almost visible through his mask. “All right! Way to go, Wings! Didn’t I tell you this was all gonna work out?”
Then Tony yanked his hand back, stared at it. “What the hell?”
Blue lightning shot out of Tony’s hand, arcing up and around his metallic form. His limbs began to jerk, uncontrollably, and he screamed in pain.
Cap took a step back. “Old-line S.H.I.E.L.D. electron scrambler,” he said, pointing at a small device on Tony’s gauntlet. “Another thing Fury gave me, years ago.”
“Wh-why?”
“In case you ever went over to the wrong side.”
Spider-Man moved in. But again Tony motioned him back, grimacing in agony. The other power fighters on Tony’s team—She-Hulk, the Thing, Ms. Marvel—stood their ground, waiting for a signal.
The Resistance moved in, flanking their leader.
Iron Man writhed on the ground, struggling to regain control of his armor. Cap glared down at him. “Your grand plan sounds more like 1940s Germany to me. What exactly do you plan to do with people who refuse to register?”
“You don’t—understand,” Tony gasped. His face was still visible, his helmet sparking blue above his forehead. He struggled to rise.
“I understand one thing. You took down two of my boys.”
Cap punched him in the jaw, a massive blow. The blow he’d always wanted to deliver to Hitler, to Mussolini, to Stalin. Tony’s head whipped back, blood trailing through the air.
The plant exploded into violence. Ms. Marvel rose up into the air, firing off power-blasts; the Falcon soared up to meet her, wings flapping wildly. Hawkeye notched his bow, urging the Young Avengers forward—but the Thing and She-Hulk formed a linebacker-style barricade, blocking their way. Goliath grew to nine feet, then twelve, raising his arms menacingly against all comers. Powerful light-knives shot out from Dagger’s hands, sparking on contact with Spider-Man’s metal suit.
Daredevil and the Black Widow circled each other, scuttling up and down half-walls in a dark ballet. Daredevil fired off his billy club, narrowly missing her head.
Cap kicked down hard on Tony’s back, heard a power relay snap. Tony’s eye-lenses flashed bright as a final short-circuit disabled his armor. Then he was still.
A whirring noise above. “Watch the skies, people!” But when Cap looked up, the S.H.I.E.L.D. copters were hovering higher, arcing up and away.
Cap frowned, then jumped back just as Tigra landed in front of him, slashing and cutting at the muscular form of She-Hulk. The two women grappled fiercely. Tigra was all speed and fury, but She-Hulk’s powerful blows were taking their toll. Tigra reached out, slashing claws across her enemy’s green face. She-Hulk howled, jumped on top of Tigra. They rolled away—
—and Cap found himself face-to-face with Reed Richards.
“Cap.” Reed held out an elongated hand. “Please…”
Something caught Cap’s eye. He reached out and snatched a tiny transceiver out of Reed’s ear. Reed grabbed for it, but was too slow.
Cap sprinted toward the far side of the plant building, ignoring Reed’s calls. He held the stolen transceiver up to his ear and heard Maria Hill’s voice:
“—all airborne units: Do not engage. Repeat, do not move in unless perimeter is breached. Prepare to activate Niflhel Protocol, at my—strike that, at Iron Man’s command. Until then, hold your positions.”
The Thing pasted Hulkling across the jaw, hard. “I don’t wanna fight you guys!” the Thing said. “Why can’t you just do like you’re told?”
Chaos all around. Falcon and Ms. Marvel continued their aerial battle; Daredevil crouched down now, staggering under the Widow’s sting-blasts. Luke Cage had joined Tigra’s fight, grappling hand-to-hand with She-Hulk.
Hawkeye made his way over to Cap, firing off arrows with every step. “We outnumber ’em, Cap,” he said. “But they got a lot more muscle on their side. And copters.”
Cap nodded grimly, backing toward the wall of the chemical plant. He gestured upward to Goliath, who now stood fifteen feet tall. Goliath nodded, and shouted out “EVERYBODY! HEAD FOR THE WATER!”
Then the Thing assaulted one of Goliath’s legs, while She-Hulk body-rammed the other. Goliath toppled and fell, letting out a pained cry. When he struck the concrete floor, the whole building shook.
Patriot stumbled over to Cap, flinging his throwing-star weapons behind him at Spider-Man. The web-slinger followed right on Patriot’s tail, moving swiftly on those metallic tentacles, furious and uncharacteristically silent. The stars bounced harmlessly off his red-and-gold uniform with a skittering sound.
Cap raised his shield—and Spider-Man vanished.
“Wh-wh—” Patriot turned to Cap. “Where’d he go?”
“Spider-Man’s wearing a new suit designed by Stark.” Cap’s eyes scanned the air furiously. “It’s bulletproof, equipped with glide-function and stealth mode…”
“You forgot butt-kicking.”
Before Cap could react, Spidey was there—suddenly, silently, appearing in the air just inches from him. Cap dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding a burst of spider-webbing. But Spidey’s tentacles flashed through the air, wrenching Cap’s shield out of his hands. Spider-Man kicked, hard, and Cap fell backward toward the jagged floor.
Cap landed, rolled onto his back, and looked up for Spider-Man. But all he saw, far above, was the Falcon swooping down:
“Cap! Look out!”
And then Iron Man was on him again. Helmet down, red eyes blazing with power, every inch the unstoppable Avenger. Tony grabbed Cap by the shoulders, lifted him up into the air. “Been improving the reboot time on my armor, Cap. You impressed?”
Tony lifted Cap over his head and slammed him clear through a wall.
“UGGGHHHHH!”
Bright phosphenes swam b
efore Cap’s eyes. Dimly, he heard the sounds of combat all around. He raised his arms like a boxer, shielding his bloody face. But a servo-enhanced roundhouse blow from Iron Man blasted into his stomach, doubling him over. He dropped to the ground, kicked out blindly. Missed.
“You’re wasting your time,” Tony continued. “This armor has recorded every punch you’ve ever thrown. It knows your next move before you do.”
He punched Cap again, in the face. Once, twice. Cap heard a sickening crunch, tasted blood where a tooth used to be.
The world was slipping away. A voice—Hawkeye?—said: “He’s killing him!”
There was a weird crackling in Cap’s ear, followed by a flurry of voices. At first he thought he was hallucinating, but then he remembered: The S.H.I.E.L.D. transceiver.
“Situation spiraling out of control.”
“Three dozen more cape-killer units surrounding the perimeter.”
And then Maria Hill: “Hold them on standby. Signal coming in from Stark: Activate Niflhel Protocol.”
The gleaming face of Iron Man filled Cap’s vision, wavering and shimmering. “I’m sorry, Cap,” Tony said. “Really, I am.”
Then, behind Tony, the heavens seemed to light up. A massive bolt of lightning stabbed down from the sky with a deafening crack, sending the Falcon and Ms. Marvel spinning through the air. It struck down right in the center of the chemical plant, splintering concrete, knocking Cage and Hawkeye off their feet.
Cap shielded his eyes from the blinding light. When his vision cleared, the sight he saw shocked him to his core.
A column of light rose from the floor of the chemical plant, lightning flashing out from it in all directions. And at the center of the lightning, hammer held high, stood the angry, imperious form of the mighty Thor.
WHEN the fighting broke out, Sue Richards fell back on her usual opening gambit. She became invisible.
She’d been reluctant to come to the chemical plant at all. Reed had assured her, several times, that Tony had everything planned, that nothing could go wrong. He said it was important they all be there, to show support, to prove to Captain America that most heroes believed in the Registration Act. He asked her to think of their children, of the kind of world she wanted Franklin and Valeria to grow up in.
