Peter lay flat on his back on the plush mattress of his Lisbon hotel room. He didn't know if Midtown High or S.H.I.E.L.D. was footing the bill for this specific suite, but the thread count was phenomenal. Beside him on the duvet sat a sleek, dark Wild Pack tactical suit, courtesy of Silvija Sablinova.
He stared at the glowing holographic files projected from his wrist computer. He had just witnessed the Wild Pack clash with a skyscraper-sized Sandman. They clearly had history. The mercenaries had rolled out with highly specialized chemical-dispersal gear, and Flint Marko had scattered the second Silvija hit the roof.
"The Wild Pack compiled insanely detailed dossiers on these guys," Peter muttered to himself, scrolling through the data. "Base stats, environmental limitations... even the fact that Hydro-Man can't forcibly manipulate the water inside a human body unless he physically forces his own mass down their throat. Disgusting, but good to know."
The core problem with the Elementals wasn't their raw destructive output. It was their functional immortality. Every single Wild Pack tactical formation was built around stalling, disrupting, and surviving. They hadn't found a single method to actually capture or kill the targets.
They were just sending troops into a meat grinder, over and over again, to buy time.
So what were they actually fighting over?
Nick Fury absolutely knew the endgame, but he was keeping Peter strictly on a need-to-know basis. Cindy was just as in the dark. Silvija had handed over her operational intelligence, but she ran a private mercenary outfit; she didn't have access to deep-state government mainframes.
"Hospitals, independent laboratories, old industrial warehouses," Peter said aloud, cross-referencing the Wild Pack's theft manifest. He tapped his earpiece. "Hey, Ultron. Cross-reference those target coordinates with a map of every known World War II Hydra base in Europe."
The holographic map flickered. Red dots bloomed across the continent, stretching from Western Europe straight into the former Soviet bloc. The overlap was near-perfect.
The Cold War powers hadn't bothered building new research facilities. They had simply paved over the old Hydra bunkers. Silvija didn't have the historical clearance to spot the architectural lineage. And since Hydra had never established a true stronghold in Lisbon, there were no underground labs to hit. That was exactly why Sandman's arrival in Portugal made zero tactical sense.
Peter frowned, scrolling through the stolen inventory lists. "This still doesn't track. Hydra is embedded everywhere. Why use giant, noisy elemental monsters to steal completely unrelated, seemingly random pieces of tech? It's too flashy."
The realization hit him like a physical blow.
The random tech. The massive, screaming monsters leveling city blocks. Fury sending Spider-Man—the most visible superhero on Earth—to Europe on a glorified field trip.
"They're a smokescreen," Peter groaned, dropping his head back against the pillows. "Fury is using me as a distraction. And Hydra is using the Elementals as a distraction."
Two massive, incredibly loud forces slamming into each other on the main stage, while the actual power players slipped quietly through the back door.
"I really hate spies," Peter sighed. But the Elementals were still a lethal threat. He had to play his part.
While Peter sulked in his hotel room in Portugal, a commercial airliner touched down in Rome, Italy. Two men in heavy jackets and pulled-down baseball caps navigated the crowded terminal, moving with the precise, economic grace of seasoned operators.
The taller man paused. His blue eyes scanned the ancient, sun-baked architecture visible through the airport glass.
"Last time I was in Rome, the Allies had just liberated it from the Nazis," Steve Rogers murmured, adjusting the strap of his duffel bag. "The city was engulfed in smoke and artillery fire. I never got the chance to actually play tourist."
Logan grunted, popping his neck. "You got plenty of time to sightsee now, Steve. By the way, considering we're supposedly old World War II buddies, how much of my actual past do you know?"
Nick Fury hadn't trusted a single active S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with this operation. The internal infiltration risk was simply too high. He needed off-the-books operators whose loyalty to the mission was absolute.
Captain America and Wolverine.
They were currently walking through Italy in civilian disguises, while two highly advanced Life Model Decoys walked around Avengers Tower in New York to maintain their alibis.
Peter Parker was completely trustworthy, but this specific mission was too deeply entangled in his own bloodline.
Richard and Mary Parker had been assassinated on European soil. They were ripped out of the sky by the Winter Soldier. Hydra wanted the classified data from the Savage Force program. The Parkers hadn't just researched arachnid genome integration; they had investigated the entire, bloody lineage of the Super Soldier projects.
It all traced back to Weapon Plus.
Steve Rogers was Project I: Rebirth. Logan was Project X. Peter Parker was the accidental heir to Project II: Savage Force, and currently hosted Project V: the Symbiote.
"Fury wants us to figure out exactly what kind of super soldiers Hydra is brewing in these old bunkers," Logan said, his voice a low, rumbling gravel.
"And how close they are to deployment," Steve finished.
Spider-Man and the Wild Pack would draw Hydra's heavy hitters into the light. Steve and Logan would carve out the rot hidden beneath the floorboards.
But Steve knew the emotional cost of this deployment. They weren't just fighting faceless mercenaries. They were going to cross paths with the ghosts of their past. The original Human Torch, Jim Hammond, was still out there, operating off ancient programming.
And so was the Winter Soldier.
Thanks to the multiversal rift to the Wasteland and Peter intel on the multiverse.
Steve already knew the horrific truth. He knew the true identity of the assassin with the metal arm.
James Buchanan Barnes.
Steve set his jaw, walking out through the sliding glass doors and into the bright Roman sun. He was here to bring his best friend home. Or die trying.