"Coulson, I need help from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Help me find the man who attacked me that day!" Steve told Coulson gravely.
Coulson looked embarrassed. "Captain, we might not be able to help you. S.H.I.E.L.D. is in serious trouble right now."
Steve frowned. He knew perfectly well that Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. "Coulson, just how many Hydra members are hiding inside S.H.I.E.L.D.? Why haven't you restored normal operations after all this time?"
Embarrassed but still polite, Coulson said, "You could almost say that S.H.I.E.L.D... is Hydra..."
Crack-
Those words struck Steve's head like a bolt from the blue.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was practically Hydra?
Steve could barely believe his ears. During World War II, he had all but died once to eliminate Hydra's leader, Red Skull!
Yet today, S.H.I.E.L.D., whose mission was to protect Blue Star and humanity, was almost entirely made up of Hydra?
Then what had his sacrifice meant?
Hadn't spending nearly sixty years frozen for that cause been a little too ridiculous?
"That's impossible. How could they all be Hydra? Doesn't that Council or whatever do anything about it? Oh, right, former Director Pierce was Hydra too..." Steve had never felt so angry and powerless.
Steve pulled himself together again and looked Coulson straight in the eye. "Coulson, I need you to tell me everything, from beginning to end, instead of just telling me who needs to be arrested."
Aside from helping Coulson hunt down Hydra's remaining members at the outset, after Zola announced that Hydra existed within S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve had spent the rest of his time helping the government deal with supercriminals and persuading Superhumans who were unwilling to comply with the Superhuman Registration Act.
The two events had happened so close together that Steve hadn't had time to attend to both fully.
Only in the past