Story: Trust Issues
Pairing(s): Bucky/OC
Rating: T-M
Summary: People say that the trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool. He trusted too little. She trusted too much. Turns out, both of them were doing the wrong thing.
Chapter 1
The woods are lovely; dark and deep.
It did not surprise Camille that the man in the forest had shot her. What had actually surprised her was that he had shot her on accident.
She had been flying through the sparse excuse for a forest that covered about thirty percent of S.H.I.E.L.D's Southwestern headquarters, sprinting at top speed, her Nike-clad feet pounding against the red-dirt covered desert ground. She had known there was a low plateau about thirty miles from the main compound where she had begun. She had taken a different route for her nightly run; intending to cut through the pitiful vegetation and scale a forty foot high wall of rock. All to get to the top of that dammed plateau.
They'd told her that the view was wonderful. Especially at night.
In her opinion, she was doing great. The run was hardly a challenge, and she was making good time, barely panting nor breaking a sweat. The stars were winking above her, and the crisp night air that was a common factor in the arid Arizona desert was extremely refreshing. She felt peaceful and was in relatively good spirits. That was until the gunshot rang out. Camille had estimated it to come from about 20 feet behind her.
"Stop running! Now! I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to." The typical words of a S.H.I.E.L.D guard's arrest script rang out in a clear, masculine voice.
Skidding to a stop in the red dirt and whipping herself around to face her assailant, she suddenly became aware of a searing pain in her upper shoulder. In spite of herself, she let out a gasp. She put the tips of her fingers to her shoulder and drew them away, slick with blood. It was a simple flesh wound, barely even grazing her body at all.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Camille murmured, wiping the dark liquid on her leggings. She heard dirt and fine gravel crunching under the guard's combat boots as he ungracefully made his way towards her, gun pointed towards her and all. She let him come. Arms crossed and eyebrows raised in anticipation for his predictably weak verbal assault. He was presumably a lower level security guard at best, and would most likely give her some form of speech in order to assert his nonexistent authority. Camille sighed when she saw his face. By guard standards, he was scrawny. Pale. Mousy hair even under the moonlight; probably couldn't even grow a full beard even as a young man. Absolutely pathetic.
"Listen, woman," he began, not even looking her in the eye, "You have no idea what you're in for. You are on governme—"
"Please tell me you're delusional." She spat, ignoring the pain that had dulled to an annoying throb in her shoulder.
The guard looked up at her. His watery pale eyes met her gray ones. She raised her slim, dark eyebrows even higher.
"Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"A-Agent Fremont, m-my apologies, I'm sorry, I-I-I didn't mean to, I just…" he stammered, throwing his gun down to the ground. "I just didn't realize it was you, that's all. Dressed in dark colors and running in the middle of the night, someone would have thought you were trying to get shot. We need to get you to a medic immediately."
"I'm wearing a S.H.I.E.L.D windbreaker," she growled. "I run every fucking night, and for the love of God, this facility is surrounded by a thirty foot high electric fence. Also, the only other person in this entire facility who can run as fast as I can is my brother, and so help me God, I have a mutation that gives me healing abilities, so, no I do not need to get to a medic immediately. So, pray tell, were you trying to kill me on purpose? Or were you just born stupid?" Her good spirits were ruined. Her shoulder hurt, and frankly, she was slightly tired.
"N-No ma'am, I'm simply try—" he stammered again, slightly backing away from the angry young woman.
"Oh, you're simple?" Camille hissed furiously, "That might be the only correct thing you've said or done tonight. Give me your name, guard. I'm talking to the Head of Security first thing tomorrow." And with that, she turned on her heel and strode past the incompetent guard, heading back to where she had come from.
The guard called after her, still stuttering, "F-Flowers, ma'am! Stanley Flowers, and-and hey! The Head's your brother, isn't he?"
Camille called back in a sing-song voice as she continued to strut back to the main compound. "He sure is! And if you ask me, I'm the nicer one out of the two of us."
…
Around forty-five minutes later, Camille had showered and was back in her room. The S.H.I.E.L.D Southwest compound was in a remote area of the Mojave, and all of the employees had their own quarters or barracks in the huge, sprawling campus. She was standing in her private, fluorescent lit bathroom clad in a pair of black boxer shorts printed with red lobsters, (a gag gift from her older brother Nik for her 22nd birthday,) and a gray camisole. Her long, dark hair was still damp from her shower and was piled on top of her head in a scraggly bun, but most importantly the ragged wound on her shoulder was clean and devoid of any dried blood. The pain was no longer an issue, as it had faded to a burning throb during her confrontation with Flowers, but the wound was still open and ragged. Frowning, she pressed her forefinger into the irritated skin at the tip of the liaison and pressed firmly while trailing her finger to the end of the wound. Her fingertip burned white-hot, and the pain was intense, as if a thousand tiny needles were sewing her cells back together. When she removed her finger, the skin was unmarked. Clean. No pain or trace of the flesh wound remained. After appraising her handiwork, Camille brushed her teeth in lukewarm water and collapsed into her too-soft bed. Within moments, she was asleep.
…
The next morning, Camille awoke to two things. The desert sun sneaking through the slits in the blinds that covered her windows and practically burning holes through her eyelids accompanied by her brother's pinched voice bleating through the intercom on her bedside table.
"Morning Cam-Cam!" his fake-cheerful voice seemed loud enough to break the plastic box, "There's going to be a very special person here to see the two of us today in a few hours, so if you could get your ass out of bed at some point, that would be wonderful."
She almost smashed the box, but instead held down the button that would allow her to reply.
"Nik?" she asked
"What?" he replied. She could almost picture his scowl.
She pressed the button again.
"Shut up."
"Camille. I'm serious. It's Alexander Pierce. Room CA4. He wants us both there."
Groaning, the brunette forced herself into an upright position. She jabbed the button on the intercom again,
"Give me an hour."
…
An hour and a half later, Camille had showered, dressed in a charcoal gray skirt and crisp white shirt, headed down to one of Southwest's many conference rooms, and was drowning her fifth cup of coffee, (black, four sugars,) across from her brother Nik, and Satan himself.
Gulping down the steaming hot liquid was all she could do from preventing herself from hurling the ceramic cup into Alexander Pierce's elderly face. Nik, on the other hand was next to her in of the leather chairs that surrounded the huge, polished mahogany table and had rested his elbows on the armrests of the chairs and sat with his fingertips pressed together and a placid expression on his face.
"So," Nik began, always cool as a cucumber, "What you're asking my lovely sister and I to do is to turn our backs on the organization that essentially raised us, to betray said organization and also to aid another organization that only exists to destroy the organization that you are asking us to betray."
Camille smirked behind the rim of her mug. Nik always had a way of speaking that made her think of circles and riddles involving chickens and eggs. He was a smart ass, but he was a brilliant, psychic smart ass.
"It's what your parents wanted. It's even written in their wills." Pierce stated, with a smug look on his face.
Camille set down her coffee mug firmly. "Our parents have been dead for ten years. If they had written it in their wills, why didn't you come to us when we were sixteen? Or eighteen? We have worked for S.H.I.E.L.D our entire lives. Why are you expecting us to change now?"
"Your parents were loyal to HYDRA, my dear. S.H.I.E.L.D killed your little brother didn't they? Caspian was his name, no? How very unfortunate. What a waste. He was only twelve at the time too, wasn't he?"
"Don't talk about him." Nik said. There was a hard edge to his voice and a cold look in his gray eyes that even Camille rarely saw. "We don't talk about him."
"Castellan, son, be reasonable. It's been years. Oh wait; you go by Nik, don't you? After Nikolai, your middle name. Why wouldn't you be proud of your first name? You and your grandfather shared a name. Castellan was a great man. Did many wonderful things for HYDRA. Just like you will."
Pierce paused to take a sip of coffee from the mug in front of him. Camille crossed her fingers under the table and hoped that it was poisoned. Pierce's proposition was ridiculous, but on the other hand, he was speaking the truth. Camille and Nik's parents were both extremely prominent figures in the HYDRA organization. Nik and Camille had known since they were children that their mommy and daddy were not the good guys. And that S.H.I.E.L.D would be compromised one day. But Camille never thought it would be in her lifetime.
"Nik. You see the future. You know that this is the right choice." Pierce said, fixing his gaze on Camille's brother.
"I can't see shit. It's all black." Nik said as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.
"Listen to me, both of you. Camille. Nik. You are two very powerful mutants. You were both a part of the Weapon X project. Those powers run in your family. You would be a huge asset in DC working for HYDRA. We need your powers. But instead, you choose to waste your talents here, in S.H.I.E.L.D's weakest division."
"There's a flaw in your plan, Pierce." Camille said, "Nick Fury."
"Camille, sweetheart. Nick Fury is dead." Alexander Pierce retorted smugly. "As of this morning, Nick Fury is dead."
Camille fixed her gaze on the landscape outside the large window that took up the conference room's entire back wall. Nick Fury. Dead. She swallowed hard,
"Th-There's no way," she stammered before collecting herself, "There's no way. You're lying. There is no way that you're right."
"Cam, no. He's right. I saw it. It looks like HYDRA is the winning side." Her brother muttered, barely audible.
A/N: Hello, welcome. So that was a preview to my new story. This is going to be set in the CA Movieverse, and I really hope you all manage to enjoy it.