Aryan sat in his private office, a minimalist space of white marble and reinforced glass. The floor-to-ceiling monitors displayed a cascade of global data: stock markets crashing, military units being frozen, and the disorganized chatter of an empire—S.H.I.E.L.D.—imploding in real-time.
The doors hissed open. Sharon Carter walked in, her face pale, her movements uncharacteristically frantic. Behind her followed Wanda Maximoff, her crimson energy flickering around her fingers—a physical manifestation of the heightened anxiety that always accompanied her protective instincts toward Aryan.
"Aryan," Sharon breathed, her voice trembling. "The feeds... the Triskelion... it's a bloodbath. I don't understand. S.H.I.E.L.D., the agency I gave my life to, the place my great-aunt built to protect the future... it was all Hydra? Every operation, every secure facility... how could we not have known? How could I have been so blind?"
She stopped in front of his desk, her eyes brimming with a volatile mix of guilt and betrayal. "And Aryan... I have to say this. I'm sorry. I lied to you. I thought I was protecting the world from potential threats. I wasn't just an FBI liaison. I was a S.H.I.E.L.D agent. I was lying to you every single day. I was part of the very system that was corrupted from the inside."
Aryan stood up and the movement was calm. He walked around the polished desk, closing the distance between them. He looked at her with a grounding warmth that seemed to pull her back from the edge of a panic attack. He placed a steady hand on her shoulder.
"Sharon, breathe," he said softly. "I knew who you were long ago. There's no impact from that lie on our relationship. You were a soldier following orders from an organization you believed was the gold standard of morality. I don't hold the mistakes of a global conspiracy against the woman who was just trying to do the right thing."
Sharon let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for years, her shoulders dropping as she leaned into his touch.
"But how did you do it?" Wanda asked, her crimson aura surged, sensing the layers of secrets Aryan was finally beginning to peel back. "The data dump—it wasn't just Tony's files. His were the foundation, but the walls and the roof... that was you. It was deep. It was decades of Umbrella intelligence synchronized perfectly with the S.H.I.E.L.D. leak. You didn't just find this out today, did you?"
Aryan gestured to the air. A holographic avatar of the Red Queen materialized, her crimson form flickering with data streams that looked like digital rain.
"I believe I should provide the clinical context," the Red Queen's voice echoed, "A year ago, within our subterranean medical wing, we were conducting trials on a high-frequency neural-realignment machine. It was designed to treat severe psychological conditions like schizophrenia by physically remapping synaptic pathways."
"One of our mid-level security analysts volunteered for the procedure," Red queen continued, looking at Sharon. "By sheer coincidence, the machine's resonance frequency hit a deep-seated mental block in his subconscious. It was a trigger. The machine shattered his brainwashing. He woke up screaming about the 'Winter Soldier' and the 'HYDRA.' He didn't even know who he was for the first hour; he only knew the scripts he had been forced to memorize."
Sharon gasped, her professional instincts kicking back in. "A Hydra sleeper? Inside Umbrella? We vetted everyone!"
"Hydra's vetting is better than ours," Aryan nodded. "Once the conditioning was gone, he was terrified. He told us everything—names, safe houses, the fact that Pierce was the head of the snake. I realized then that if S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised to that degree, I couldn't go to the authorities. The authorities were the enemy. I had to work in the shadows. For the last year, I've used the Red Queen to crawl through every encrypted server on the planet, following the breadcrumbs he gave us. We collected evidence on every senator, general, and agent linked to the HYDRA."
"You've been carrying this for a year?" Wanda's voice was a painful realization. She stepped closer, her eyes searching for him. "Alone? You've been watching the world rot, knowing the names of the monsters, and you didn't tell us? You didn't let us help you carry that weight?"
"I couldn't risk it, Wanda," Aryan said. "If the Red Queen had been detected, Hydra would have gone to ground. They would have burned the evidence and vanished. We only get one shot at killing a god like Hydra."
Sharon looking at him with a mix of awe and frustration. "Aryan, I understand the tactical necessity, but look at you. You've been playing a global chess match against a ghost for twelve months while running a trillion-dollar company. You're human—or at least, you're supposed to be. You can't do everything alone."
"She's right," Wanda added, her obsession flaring into a protective stance. "We are here. I have my magic, Pietro has his speed, Sharon has her intelligence and tactical training. We are your circle. When you keep these things from us, you aren't just protecting us—you're excluding the very people who would die for you. Don't do this alone ever again. We are your shield, too."
Aryan looked at the two women. In Wanda's eyes, he saw a devotion that bordered on worship; in Sharon's, a grounded, fierce loyalty. Both were terrified for him because of the isolation he chose.
"I hear you," Aryan said, his voice dropping to a sincere register. "I've spent so long ensuring the pieces were in the right place that I forgot the pieces have hearts. I won't keep the shadows to myself anymore."
The Red Queen flickered, her eyes turning a bright white. "Aryan, Mr. Stark has arrived."
Aryan turned to the window, watching the sunset over the city. The sky was a bruised purple, the color of a world that had been beaten but was finally waking up.
"Tony is on his way here now from the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters," Aryan said. "He's exhausted, he's traumatized, and he's carrying the greatest secret of the 20th century in the passenger seat. He's not coming alone. He's bringing the man who was forced to be Hydra's greatest weapon for seventy years."
"James Barnes," Sharon whispered, her eyes widening as she realized the historical weight of the moment. "The Winter Soldier."
"No," Aryan said, his eyes glowing with a golden light that seemed to mirror the setting sun. "He's bringing a friend. And we're going to use that machine to give him his mind back. We're going to show the world that the first thing Umbrella does in this new era is heal the man the old world broke."
Aryan looked at Wanda and Sharon, "Get ready. No more secrets between us. However, I have some other tasks for you for now. Your task is to monitor all U.S.S. activities and help them coordinate the global security transition while I handle Tony's arrival."
Before they turned to their tasks, Sharon stepped forward and pulled Aryan into a tight hug, grounding herself in his presence after the day's chaos. Wanda followed immediately, her embrace fierce and protective, her magic thrumming softly against his chest as if to mark him as her own.
Watching them, the Red Queen's holographic avatar flickered with a digital sigh, her pixelated arms crossed over her chest. "I am filing a formal grievance," she complained, her voice tinged with a simulated pout. "I want a biological body as soon as possible so I can hug you like they do. This light-projection life is severely lacking in tactile feedback."
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