"Don't move."
Garrett moved first.
In a blur, he snatched the pistol back from Coulson's hand and jammed it against Coulson's temple, dragging him close. At the same instant, Ward lunged for the nearest noncombatant, seizing Jemma Simmons and pressing his gun to her head.
"Let us walk out," Garrett barked. "Do that, and they live."
If their minds were searched, everything would unravel. This was their only window. Get out, regroup with the Winter Soldiers, and finish it cleanly.
The third agent who had followed them froze, pale and confused. He wasn't one of them. He'd just believed the wrong man.
Coulson's expression twisted with fury. "You bastard. You leaked the safe house. You got Fury killed."
Garrett sneered. "You're still naïve, Phil. I honestly don't know how you ever made it this far."
His voice dropped, bitter and sharp.
"I didn't want to defect. But I was dying. Organ failure. Months left. Fury knew and still refused to authorize the procedure. Said the tech wasn't ready. Said it might make me unstable."
He laughed coldly.
"Hydra offered me a cure. A real one. A perfect body. I chose to live."
"You chose to sell your soul," Coulson shot back. "Fury wasn't abandoning you. He was trying to save you from becoming a monster. Hydra doesn't cure people. They turn them into weapons."
"I'm not stupid," Garrett snapped, eyes blazing. "They use me, I use them. I won't end up like those mindless soldiers outside. I'll be something better. Something that survives what's coming."
He gestured for Ward to back toward the exit.
Neither of them made it a step.
The pistols in their hands shuddered, twisted, and collapsed inward with a shriek of tortured metal, crumpling into useless scrap.
Rowan's voice was mild. "Coulson, did you forget to mention that I don't just mess with minds?"
Coulson blinked once. "I knew you could bend bullets. I didn't realize you could do that."
"Neither did they," Rowan said, amused. "Recent development."
Coulson didn't waste the moment. He slammed an elbow into Garrett's gut and followed with a clean, practiced combination that dropped him hard to the floor. Garrett's body, already failing beneath its enhancements, never recovered.
Ward released Jemma and bolted for the door.
"Running already?" Logan muttered.
Thor stepped into the doorway instead.
"Move," Ward snarled, drawing a knife and lunging with lethal precision. He was fast. Trained. Deadly.
Thor caught his wrist effortlessly.
"My brother stabs better than that," Thor said, almost disappointed.
He flipped Ward over his shoulder and drove him into the floor with bone-rattling force.
Rowan raised a hand. Two glowing restraints snapped into place, binding Garrett and Ward where they lay. He closed his eyes, his presence pressing inward as he searched their minds.
The room waited.
Moments later, Rowan exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.
"Hydra in this world," he said quietly, "is not weak."
The fragments he'd seen painted a different picture than the stories people told themselves. This Hydra wasn't a decaying relic stitched together from old wars. It was disciplined. Adaptive. Ruthless.
No ancient legends. No mythic origin stories.
Their version of "Hive" wasn't an immortal tyrant from the past, but a terminally ill operative rebuilt through Strucker's experiments. Parasites. Augmentation. Survival at any cost.
And Baron Strucker himself wasn't a disposable zealot hiding behind borrowed power. He was dangerous. Capable. A true architect.
No wonder Fury had lost.
This wasn't the enemy anyone remembered.
It was worse.