Peter stepped back out of the adjacent restroom, drying his hands on his jeans. He dropped into the chair across from Fury, finally voicing the question that had been gnawing at the back of his skull. "So, I've got to ask. Did you just rent this place out for the afternoon, or is this actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost? Because it just looks like a very ordinary, very boring restaurant."
Fury didn't look up. He kept twisting the Rubik's Cube in his hand. Click, clack, click. "Unfortunately for the local real estate market, this is a legitimate S.H.I.E.L.D. base. We own barbershops, corner diners, bookstores. You're just lucky you wandered into this one, otherwise I would've had to drag you across town."
"I honestly didn't think you'd show up in person," Peter said, leaning back. "Figured S.H.I.E.L.D. had you bogged down in paperwork."
"Life Model Decoys. LMDs. You should be familiar with the concept," Fury said, setting the scrambled cube onto the metal table. "Some of our top-tier agents use them to replace themselves or their family members for security. If you want, I can requisition a set for your house in Queens. Your real family can lay low off-grid, exactly like Agent Silk setup."
Peter blinked, his brain grinding gears. It was the first update he'd heard about Cindy family in months after the attack. Cindy was an active S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and her family had been attacked. So now her real parents were hidden away, and her house was filled with androids? Was Cindy eating breakfast with robots?
Before Peter could spiral into the existential dread of android roommates, Fury cut him off. "Let's pivot to the Elementals. We've got highly trained field agents embedded near their operational zones, gathering intel. We finally have a name for the man pulling their strings. Arnim Zola. Does that ring a bell?"
Peter's head snapped up. His eyes immediately darted toward the closed door, then up to the air vents.
Fury watched his panic and sighed. "Relax, Parker. The entire room is a Faraday cage. Sealed tight. All electronic signals are jammed. If someone wanted to eavesdrop, they'd have to be standing right next to us. And if they were, I have a Spider-Man."
Peter exhaled, his shoulders dropping a fraction. But then his brain caught up to the mechanics of the room. Wait. No electronic devices can function here.
If electronics were dead in this room, then the Nick Fury sitting in front of him wasn't a robot. But that meant the Nick Fury back in New York were absolutely LMDs.
"Zola," Peter said, forcing his mind back on track. "The Hydra scientist? The guy who got imported through Project Paperclip to dodge a war crimes tribunal? You're telling me he's still running Hydra?"
"Without a doubt," Fury said, his single eye hardening. "Project Paperclip was a catastrophic miscalculation. The U.S. wanted to secure a technological edge in the post-war scramble. They used Soviet paranoia and cushy amnesty deals to lure in the Third Reich's brightest minds. A massive chunk of them were Hydra. They never repented. They just changed their uniforms and became part of us."
Fury finally pulled his boots off the table and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Or maybe the U.S. just wasn't playing the 'good guy' to begin with, and the two sides realized they had a lot in common. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s predecessor, the Strategic Scientific Reserve, was built specifically to dismantle Hydra. They skimmed the cream of the Allied forces. We didn't sweat the low-level lab coats."
"I'm guessing Zola wasn't a low-level lab coat," Peter muttered.
"Bingo." Fury tapped the metal table. "Zola had two things going for him. First, the Allies bagged him early, and he sang like a canary. Handed over Hydra's tech schematics and military intelligence, building trust fast. Second, he was a certified genius. He spearheaded most of Hydra's tech, including the Tesseract research. That's why S.H.I.E.L.D. brought him in as a 'rehabilitated' asset. Nobody figured he was a lifer."
"It's the classic 'cut off one head' routine," Peter said, drumming his fingers against his knee.
"Worse," Fury grunted. "I'm starting to think the Third Reich was just a host body. Hydra is a parasite. When they encounter a stronger predator, they don't fight to the death. They surrender. They embed themselves in the victor's ranks, siphon their resources, and grow stronger. They did it to the Nazis, they did it to the Soviets, and they did it to us. Hydra might be older—and much more terrifying—than anyone realizes."
Peter thought about the heavy hitters they'd faced. The Chitauri invasion during the Battle of New York. The Kree. Even Thor's people up in Asgard. Hydra didn't have their raw, world-ending firepower.
But a fleet of alien warships couldn't hollow out a country from the inside. Hydra was rotting S.H.I.E.L.D. from the marrow out. The terrifying part wasn't the monsters in the dark; it was the monsters wearing familiar faces.
Fury had found out Zola was alive. Somehow, in the 1970s, Hydra had found a way to preserve Zola's consciousness right under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose. Fury was already scrutinizing his own superior, Alexander Pierce, wondering if the World Security Council was compromised. If Pierce was Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D. was basically a dead man walking.
Peter swallowed hard, the reality of it settling like a brick in his stomach. "So. What do you need me to do?"
"Your usual routine," Fury said flatly. "Draw fire. I'm entirely sure Zola is currently calculating how to take you off the board. The Elementals are going to target you next. Keep your guard up. They swapped out Molten Man for Jim Hammond, meaning they still have a four-man roster."
Wait. Jim Hammond? The original WWII-era synthetic Human Torch who went AWOL after the Madripoor harbor battle? Peter's brow furrowed.
"Why target me?" Peter asked, genuinely confused. "I'm just a kid from Queens taking photos. Shouldn't I be the one hunting them down with the Wild Pack?"
Fury didn't answer immediately. The silence in the Faraday-sealed room felt suffocating.
"Because you are Richard Parker's son," Fury finally said, his voice dropping an octave. "I don't know exactly what your father uncovered in Europe before he died. But whatever it was, it terrified Hydra."
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