Two years after the Battle of New York,[N 1] Steve Rogers works in Washington, D.C., for the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., while adjusting to contemporary society.
On his way to rendezvous with Maria Hill, Fury is ambushed by assailants led by an assassin called the Winter Soldier. Escaping to Rogers' apartment, Fury warns him that S.H.I.E.L.D.
Zola informs them that after being captured by Rogers during World War II,[N 2] he was recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D., where he secretly reformed Hydra within its ranks, sowing global chaos with the objective of making humanity surrender its freedom in exchange for security, using the Winter Soldier as their primary assassin.
The pair narrowly escape death when a S.H.I.E.L.D. missile destroys the bunker, and realize that Pierce is Hydra's leader within S.H.I.E.L.D.
They capture S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell, a Hydra mole, forcing him to divulge that Zola developed a data-mining algorithm that can identify individuals becoming threats to Hydra.
Hill manages to extract the trio to a safehouse where Fury, who had faked his death, plans to sabotage the Helicarriers by replacing their controller chips.
Romanoff, disguised as one of the Council members, disarms Pierce. Fury arrives and forces Pierce to unlock S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database so that Romanoff can leak classified information, exposing Hydra to the public.
Rogers and Wilson decide to find the Winter Soldier, while Rumlow, who was a Hydra agent, is hospitalized following the Triskelion's destruction.