Captain America and Diamondback have awoken to find themselves chained to the wall of the Serpent Society’s lair, and King Cobra announces that Diamond will be tortured and killed because of her defection from the villain team. Meanwhile Cap will be sold to the highest bidder. After a sixteen-hour wait, the Serpents come for Cap. They unchain him from the wall…and he kicks his shield out of King Cobra’s hands and it ricochets off the ceiling to come down and sever Cap’s bonds. Freed, he proceeds to beat the ever-loving crap out of the gang members in the room…but not before Cobra signals for help. Cap frees Diamondback and together they take on the rest of the Society as they come pouring into the dungeon. When the dust clears, Cap calls SHIELD to arrange pickup for the vanquished villains and they leave. [Meanwhile upstairs, various baddies including MODOK, Baron Blood, and Arnim Zola wait in vain for the Captain America "auction" to begin….]
Aboard the SHIELD Sub-Carrier, rogue agent Mark Nolan is plotting to seize control of the organization from Nick Fury…until he realizes Fury is right behind him, backed by loyal agents, to place him under arrest….
Elsewhere Spider-Man swings by Steve’s apartment looking for Cap; not finding him he heads off in search of Iron Man….
On their way home, Diamondback apologizes to Cap for involving him in her troubles; he assures her it was no problem and they kiss. He mentions that the adventure has taken his mind off the Avengers tragedy for a few hours and was therefore welcome. He plans to make some calls about repairs to his damaged apartment and then he will drop by Rachel’s later. On his way in, his landlady excoriates him for causing the damage and gives him a card left by Paladin. He calls Rachel to say he may be a little late because he is helping Paladin with something. The Red Skull is waiting for Diamondback at home however and tells her she will have to kill Cap the old-fashioned way. She balks at this, having realized she is in love with Cap. An enraged Red Skull then snaps her neck…just as Steve knocks at the door….