As the story opens, Captain America is in furious combat with the brutish villain Mr. Hyde atop a roof. The two plunge over the side but Cap flips in the air to grab a flagpole leaving Hyde to hit the ground hard. Hyde lifts himself from the fractured sidewalk to knock the shield out of Cap’s hands but ends up immediately collapsing from the exertion. Cap reclaims his shield from an astonished teenaged onlooker and takes his leave over the rooftops. Changing into his Steve Rogers clothes he stops by a video store to rent his favorite DVD again. He returns home to find Diamondback waiting on his front step. She wanted to see him again so he invites her up to see YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. They are interrupted by Steve’s beeper; he looks out the window and sees Nick Fury with a jet pack, asking "Can Captain America come out to play?" Fury, Cap, and Diamond head up to the SHIELD Sub-Carrier where Fury tells Cap that Senator Richard Winslow has been kidnapped by HYDRA and is being held at their base in the Florida Keys. As Cap and Diamond jet down to the ground we learn that "Fury" is an impostor, SHIELD Agent Mark Nolan masked by holographics and in the pay of a mysterious master. Arriving at the HYDRA base, Cap and Diamondback fight their way in, using SHIELD tech to open a hole in the wall and locate the Senator in his cell. Cap snatches him up and the heroic duo fights their way out again past a bevy of HYDRA guards and make it to the safety of the carrier. Later the Senator meets with Mark Nolan and we learn that the kidnapping was a set-up; the capture and rescue was staged (without Cap’s knowledge) as a stunt to position the Senator for a Presidential bid. When Winslow reneges on the agreed price, Nolan makes a veiled threat that shuts the Senator’s mouth.
As Cap and Diamondback head back toward his apartment, Cap receives an Avengers Priority White Alert, and heads off on the double. Diamondback continues on to her place where she assures the Red Skull that everything is going according to plan….