- "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been compromised, you've said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."
"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed." - ―Steve Rogers and Nick Fury[src]
The S.H.I.E.L.D. Dam Facility is a top secret underground facility maintained by Nick Fury.
History[]
Maria Hill took Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Sam Wilson to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Dam Facility after rescuing him from Brock Rumlow in Washington, D.C. Inside the dam, Hill briefed Doctor Fine about Romanoff's gunshot wound in order to get her treated, but first she wanted all of them to go to see someone. Hill took them to Nick Fury's presence, who was lying in bed but alive, with Rogers and Romanoff looking at him in shock.
While Romanoff's wound was being treated, Fury explained the injuries he suffered during his assassination attempt, and how he faked his death using Tetrodotoxin B, a substance developed by Bruce Banner to treat his stress that was able to slow the pulse to one beat a minute, having found a use for it despite it not working for Banner.
Rogers asked the reason for keeping his survival as a secret and while Hill tried to justify that the attempt had to look successful in order to let Fury survive, Fury acknowledged he was not sure whom to trust.
Fury looked at a photograph of Alexander Pierce, the man behind his assassination attempt as he was secretly a member of HYDRA, and revealed how Pierce declined once to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, literally saying that "Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility". Fury said that things like that were what prevented him from trusting people.
Romanoff acknowledged that they needed to stop the launch of the Insight Helicarriers. Fury revealed his plan to hijack the targeting system of the Helicarriers, and Hill explained the details of how the Helicarriers were set to triangulate their weapon system with the Insight satellites, so they need to replace their targeting systems with the chips Fury had, replacing the three of them, as even only one of the Helicarriers would kill a large amount of people deemed as targets.
Maria Hill in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Dam Facility
Fury wanted to purge S.H.I.E.L.D. from the HYDRA infiltration, assuming that the whole crew in the carriers were members of HYDRA. so they could salvage what was left of S.H.I.E.L.D. after stopping Project Insight. Rogers refused, saying that they were going to take down S.H.I.E.L.D., as the whole agency was compromised and nobody noticed. Fury noticed, but it was too late, and many people had paid the price before he did it.
Fury apologized about Bucky Barnes' situation as a puppet for HYDRA, but Rogers doubted Fury would have told him even if he had known, and S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA should be destroyed. Hill agreed with Rogers, and Romanoff silently showed she backed up Rogers' decision; Wilson replied he would follow Rogers. Fury acknowledged that it looked like Rogers was the one who would give the orders from now on.
Rogers went out of the facility to the bridge of the dam, remembering how Barnes comforted him after his mother, Sarah died, and how Barnes told him he would always be with him, "till the end of the line." Wilson interrupted Rogers' thoughts, reminding him that Barnes would be guarding the Helicarriers to confront him, and tried to convince him he needed to fight Barnes, as it didn't matter who he was before, now he was one of the kind Rogers must stop, not save. Rogers doubted he would be able to do it, but Wilson assured him that Barnes would not give him a choice, as he did not remember Rogers.
Rogers assured Wilson that Barnes would remember him, and told him to prepare himself for the upcoming battle. Wilson asked Rogers if he would go like that, but Rogers said that when someone fought a war, he had to wear a uniform, so he returned to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in order to steal the replica of uniform he wore during World War II.[1]
