Marvel: The Villain Chapter 373 Patriot

Tony’s words hit Steve like a thunderbolt. He stared in disbelief. "You’re saying... Norman is doing all of this to protect Hydra?"

Tony took a slow sip of his coffee, savoring the brew. "Exactly. Think about it. Hydra has defected to the Joker Organization. As a High member, Norman has access to their entire database, their personnel files, and—most importantly—the footage of your friend killing Nick Fury. I’d bet my last dollar that Norman didn’t plant that camera. Hydra recorded the hit themselves. Assassins like that always need proof of the kill for their handlers."

It was a logical, terrifying explanation. But Steve frowned. "If Hydra is under the Joker’s wing now, why would Norman hand their files to the Vice President? Isn’t that self-sabotage?"

Tony set his cup down, a cold, predatory glint in his eyes. "That is the most brilliant, most sadistic part of his plan. To pull Hydra’s teeth out of the fire, he had to provide something with high credibility—something the government’s analysts couldn’t debunk."

"If I’m right, the data he provided is 100% real, but it’s worthless. It’s ancient history. Organizational charts, the founders’ biographies, terrorist attacks from the seventies... it’s all fluff. The real weapon is the list. Norman claimed he only had hard evidence on a small group. I’d bet those people are actual Hydra members, and the evidence against them is airtight. But here’s the catch: the government likely already had files on most of them. They’re the sacrificial lambs—the ones Hydra couldn’t save anyway."

Tony leaned forward, his voice dropping. "The rest of the names on that list? The ones with ’no evidence yet’? Those aren’t Hydra. Those are the SHIELD agents who stayed loyal to the country. Norman is using a handful of Hydra traitors as bait to send the real patriots to prison. Once the government confirms the first few names are real, they’ll panic. For national security, they’ll detain everyone on the list. Regardless of the outcome, those elite agents will never be allowed near a terminal again. Their careers are dead. And the Hydra sleepers who weren’t on the list? They’ll walk right back into the Triskelion and take their chairs. To them, nothing has changed—except that they now answer to Norman instead of Alexander Pierce."

Tony Stark, the Merchant of Death turned Avenger, had once again proven why his intellect was feared. With zero physical evidence, he had reverse-engineered the Joker’s entire endgame just by listening to a single conversation.

Steve was silent for a long time. "The Joker Organization... they’re hollowing out SHIELD for themselves," He whispered.

"Why wouldn’t they?" Tony shrugged. "SHIELD is the world’s largest intelligence apparatus. It has more data and tech resources than some continents. If Jason wants to expand, he’d be an idiot not to crave it."

"What do we do?" Steve asked, his voice thick with a mix of fury and desperation. He hated the Joker even more than Hydra. At least Hydra had an ideology; the Joker just wanted to watch the world burn in a very specific way.

Tony let out a dry, cynical laugh. "What can we do? Walk out there with your brainwashed best friend and tell the Acting President we’re the good guys? Cap, the moment we clear the perimeter of this base, the Air Force will have a dozen F-22s painting our tails. More likely, we get within ten feet of Norman, and he reboots your brain before you can say a word. You’d kill me, then kill the VP, and you’d spend the rest of history as the face of Hydra. Norman has us in a cage, and the bars are made of public opinion."

Steve’s heart sank. He felt the weight of the world pressing down on him.

"Damn it," He hissed, his soul feeling like lead.

Tony sighed, matching Steve’s silence. The situation was a stalemate. For the first time, the two most powerful men on Earth were completely sidelined.

*

The emergency cabinet meeting was a pressure cooker. After the VP briefed them on Norman’s intel, the room descended into a frantic debate. The first order of business was the VP’s family. While still on the road, the VP had called his wife, ordering them to abandon their vacation and get to an airport immediately.

His wife had been furious about the ruined trip, but the sheer panic in her husband’s voice silenced her.

Fifteen minutes later, the military had mapped out a secure flight path. The Secretary of State was on the phone with European authorities, demanding armed police protection until the family reached the runway. Once over international waters, a squadron of Iron Legion drones would provide a heavy-metal escort all the way to Andrews Air Force Base.

With his personal crisis temporarily managed, the VP wiped the sweat from his brow. "Next item. The list provided by Norman."

A Senator spoke up immediately. "Norman has cleared his name. I move to vacate the warrants against him and restore his rank. But... regarding the list... we need to be extremely cautious."

"Agreed," Another chimed in. "This was an independent investigation. It could be flawed. We can’t afford to ruin the lives of good men based on one man’s notes."

A high-ranking General nodded. "Many of the names on this list occupy sensitive positions in the military and intelligence community. If we move too fast, we’ll decapitate our own defenses."

The room was filled with the sound of men protecting their own. These weren’t just names; they were friends, proteges, and political donors.

The Vice President, a veteran of a thousand such rooms, saw exactly what was happening. His temper finally snapped.

"Are you people insane?" He roared, slamming his palms onto the table. The room went dead silent. "The President is in a body bag! Steve Rogers is a fugitive! Hydra didn’t just infiltrate SHIELD—they built a nest in it! And while you’re worrying about your golf buddies, the Joker Organization has occupied Wakanda and is sitting on enough Vibranium to level every city on this coast!"

"The house is on fire, and you’re worried about the curtains! If we don’t act now, there won’t be a government to protect!"

The outburst worked. The objectors lowered their heads, some looking ashamed, others just hiding their resentment.

"Since no one else wants to lead, you’ll do it my way," The VP commanded. "The military and FBI will coordinate a simultaneous sweep. Every person on that list is to be detained immediately."

"Sir, we don’t have the prison capacity for—"

"I don’t care about the prisons!" The VP interrupted. "These are suspects, not convicts. Put them under soft house arrest in a secure facility—a resort, a military base, I don’t care. Tell the press they are attending a ’mandatory specialized training seminar’ for the next three months. They keep their pay. They keep their titles. But they don’t touch a keyboard until the FBI and CIA have scrubbed their lives clean."

It was a compromise the cabinet could stomach. The objectors backed down.

"We start with the ones Norman provided evidence for," The VP added. "Anyone with a confirmed link to Hydra is moved to a black site for trial. This is a time of crisis. We will root out every snake, or we will die trying."

The sweep began within the hour. Across D.C., riot vans and armored SUVs screeched to a halt in front of suburban homes and high-rise apartments. Agents were pulled from their beds, handed training notices, and ushered into vehicles at gunpoint. Overnight, thousands of people simply vanished from the grid.

Simultaneously, the FBI and CIA began vetting the evidence Norman had provided. To their shock and terror, it was flawless. Every bank account, every encrypted email, every secret meeting Norman had flagged turned out to be real. These men were Hydra.

The breakthrough sent a wave of cold fear through the administration. If the evidence was real, then the list was real. And if the list was real, it meant the call was coming from inside the house.

But just as the plan seemed to be working, disaster struck.

The news from Europe was catastrophic. The Vice President’s wife and daughter had vanished. The police had found their hotel room empty; it was as if they had simply evaporated into thin air.

The news broke the Vice President. He sat in his office, a ghost of a man. The cabinet members shared his terror, wondering if their families were next.

*

A week after the disappearance, a video arrived at the White House. The footage showed the wife and daughter huddled in a concrete cell. A distorted voice issued Hydra’s demands:

Release every Hydra member currently in custody.Hand over the man responsible for the "betrayal"—Norman—to Hydra for "processing."

"If these demands are met," The voice rasped, "Your family returns. If not... you can watch them die on the next livestream."

The cabinet sat in a stunned, hollow silence after the video ended. No one looked at the Vice President. They were waiting for him to break, to negotiate, to trade the country’s security for his blood. They assumed he would bargain—maybe trade money or weapons, or offer a deportation deal. No one expected him to stand his ground.

The Vice President sat with his elbows on the desk, his face hidden in his hands. Finally, he spoke. His voice was steady, but it sounded like it was coming from a graveyard.

"I am signing an executive order..."

The cabinet held its breath.

"Effective immediately, I am appointing Norman as the new Director of SHIELD. He is to be given full authority to track down Steve Rogers and conduct a scorched-earth purge of Hydra remnants within our borders."

The room erupted in gasps. The General stared at him. "Sir? You’re... you’re choosing him over your family?"

The Vice President looked up, his eyes bloodshot and raw. "Norman is a national hero. He sacrificed his safety to save this country from a Nazi resurgence. Heroes deserve the treatment of heroes. I cannot abandon him. The government cannot abandon him. And the people he saved will not abandon him."

"I love my family more than life itself. But I will not trade the security of this nation for their lives. That is my line. And Hydra just crossed it."

"The order stands. Now get out there and execute it."

The media machine took over within hours. The story of Norman, the Last Patriot, and the Vice President’s Impossible Sacrifice flooded every screen in America.

The narrative was set. Steve Rogers was no longer a hero; he was a clown in a circus suit, and the world was ready to see him hang.

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