Hello everybody! Thank you all so much for reading my fic!! I just want to let you all know that I am VERY new to marvel, so please excuse me if I massively mess up some of the characters or anything else. I also wanted to let you guys know that this takes place a few weeks after Captain America Winter Soldier, and before Age of Ultron. Thank you so much for putting up with me I hope you enjoy!
Steve Rogers could tell that something was off when he arrived before the fake HYDRA base in rural northen Texas. It was a large, black and gray concrete factory, with all the windows blacked out. surrounding it was only amber dessert, a blazing sun, a few cacti, and the occasional bird. It was 10 miles from the nearest town and looked abandoned from the outside. In fact, the only thing that let Steve know that the A, wasn't hallucinating the factory, and B, this was the right place, was the giant red HYDRA logo painted on the front, standing out from the old, grey bricks.
That morning, Nick Fury had called him and told him that "there was a slight threat that he needed to deal with." And After looking through some files on the flight over, Steve got a better idea of what was going on. A small group of people in northern Texas apparently were blurring the lines between Neo Nazi, Cultists, and mental patients, who loved HYDRA. They weren't an actual part of HYDRA, and up until now, they had mostly kept to themselves, not causing any real trouble. They only left the factory that they used as a base to buy food and supplies once a month. However, 3 days ago, one of the members of the fake HYDRA shot the cashier in the grocery store, and the other 5 members who went with him stole the contents of the store.
Nothing technically strange about the situation, but something about it was rubbing Steve the wrong way, not that he could tell what. There were 15 people in this group tops, and he had a team of 2 other shield agents. Natasha had come along too, despite Fury saying that "this isn't a big enough of a job for 2 Avengers." She had replied with. "Too bad, I'm going anyway" That was just the way Nat was, and Steve wouldn't change it for the world. Although letting Natasha go with him meant that he had to give up the two other agents in his crew, but he didn't really mind. Natasha as worth 30 agents and everyone knew it. Their mission was to go into the base, capture the members of this fake Hydra, get them on transports for questioning. after everyone was out of the building, go back in and make sure they didn't have any actual connection to HYDRA or have anything else dangerous inside.
"This place looks fun" Natasha commented, popping a bubble gum bubble in his ear, hugging into him while riding on his motorcycle. The S.H.I.E.L.D plane had dropped them about 5 miles out, so they could have the element of surprise.
"And we're going inside" Steve nonchalantly replied. Not that he didn't enjoy her playful banter, it was just that there was a job they needed to get done.
"Well, I hope so." Nat joked back.
A brief smile crossed Steve's face before he went back to his focus mode. "The plan strictly capture and retrieve." He commanded, pulling up the base. "There's no cover out here, so when we pull up we go in whatever entrance we can. Your job is to get all the members in one spot so we can load them on the transports."
"And what's your job, Mr.In charge?" She bantered back
"I'm going after the leader" He divulged. "Ready to go?"
"Yep" Nat grinned, and Steve drove to the front entrance.
He braced himself a huge wave of bullets, but they never came.
"Are you sure you have the right address?" Natasha commented.
"See any other abandoned Factories with the HYDRA logo painted on it?" Steve groaned, gritting his teeth.
"I'm just saying, no one seems to be home." She continued.
"Let's go in." Steve decided, parking his bike next to the front door.
"I'll take a window" Natasha volunteered, and started scaling the building.
Steve cracked his neck and pushed open the door. He was greeted with a long, tall hallway. The only light source was the door behind him, and it wasn't nearly enough to see by. He gingerly turned on his flashlight, and carefully wandered through the hallway, shield at the ready. The hallway seemed as abandoned as the outside of the factory. The walls still had old schedules, company bulletins, and black and white pictures of the past employees and their families. The only notice of Hydra was on the floor right was he walked in. Someone had written "HAIL HYDRA" in giant red spray paint, giving t the appearance of blood.
After about 3 minutes, Steve was finally alerted to the fact that somebody actually lived here. He had just been checking out the hallway, when out of nowhere, the hallway lights flickered on, and a woman jumped from the rafters of the ceiling, knocking him over
"What the hell?!" He exclaimed, out of pure shock, trying to get a good look at her. Form what he could tell, she had waist length blonde hair, that was hanging loosely down her back. She had a pretty strong build, and a tall frame, in fact, she came up to his chin. He could see that she had on tight, black yoga pants, and a matching tight black shirt with the red HYDRA logo on the shoulders and chest.
He didn't have much time to look though, because she immediately punched him in the jaw. He stumbled back, still a little surprised from having her fall on his face, but when he saw her gearing up for her next blow, he held up his shield, and as she punched, he shoved her back.
The fight went on for some time, and her fighting style Steve could only describe as schizophrenic. One second she was jumping around him, throwing small, extremely quick punches, in attempts to confuse can capture him. The next second, she seemed to be trying to leap in the air and kick him unconscious in the face with her black leather snow boots. But whenever he blocked her with his shield, she glanced back behind her and then tries to force him back, out the way he came, with a force he had only seen a few times before.
It finally ended when Natasha came out of a door at the end of the hallway, from the direction the strange woman had been looking. Nat took one glance at her, puller but her tranquilizer gun, and shot the woman, leaving her unconscious.
"I had her on the ropes" Steve started before Natasha had time for a witty remark.
"Sure you did" She sarcastically grinned, and put the woman on top of a pile containing about 10 other bodies, all who were on top of a cart looking thing.
"You know we were supposed to take them alive, right?" Cap groaned. "Or is this another one of your 'side missions'?"
"Calm down Rogers." Natasha suggested, "It's just easier to get them here if they're unconscious"
"Fine" he sighed. "I'm going to inspect the rest of the base, you call the transport truck."
"Already on it." She grinned and pushed the cart of bodies outside.
"Was that everyone?" Steve questioned, as she was leaving.
"Yes." She answered, clearly ready to get out and get home. Not that Steve blamed her, the factory was extremely hot inside.
"I'm going to take a look around." He announced, heading to the door that Nat had come out of and that the woman had kept glancing at.
"If you really feel the need" Nat sighed, "But if you get eaten alive I'm not going in after you"
"Very funny" He chuckled, and walked through, although a tiny part of him was concurred or a minute there was something out there that wanted to eat him.
The rest of the 3 story factory was somehow even creepier than the front hallway. From what Steve could tell, they only used the first floor of the factory. There was only one flight of stairs that hadn't had its door sealed shut, and the one flight of stairs was open had been blown up after the second floor.
The few industrial lights that still worked flickered on and off, making the hallway either brighter than the surface of the sun or pitch black, with no in between or any system.
Most of the rooms were empty, but there was a few bedrooms, a few offices, and a meeting room. All the rooms he had gone inside had 2 distinct patterns. First. They each had a large HYDRA logo painted in spray paint on the wall. Second, all the furniture in each room was tossed around or completely broken, rendering any evidence form the rooms useless. Natasha wasn't that messy, so Seeing that the members of the fake HYDRA put up such a fight made Steve feel a bit better and more suspicious. Better, because Nat had an actual reason to knock them all unconscious, and it confirmed his mee found hunch that the members were hiding something big.
The first and only room that seemed to break these patterns was the Medical exam room. It was immaculately put together, perfectly clean, and everything seemed organized. Steve started to poke around when the beam of his flashlight caught on to a needle. It wasn't the fact that it was needle and syringe was empty that shocked him, but the size of it. It fits in the palm of his hand and would have been too small even for him before he was given the serum.
He investigated a bit further, and actually kicked a small wooden box, that went up to his knees. The box caught his attention even more than the tiny syringe, the factory, or even the woman who came from the ceiling, mainly because it squeaked.
It was a loud, high pitched squeak, that wasn't soft enough to be a mouse, but too organic to be a recording in order to scare him. He cautiously kneeled down and pulled the box out from under the counter.
The box wasn't heavy, but it definitely had something good sized inside of it. Whatever was in the box whimpered, and Steve could make out the fear in its voice and could feel it move in the box.
He took a deep breath and removed the top of the box, only to nearly drop it in shock.
Inside the box was a tiny, curled up, shaking, little girl.