((Some changes have been made to make this work so don't be surprised if so-n-so are alive haha. Enjoy! ))
"Miss Norton, how is the blueprint coming for that new prosthetic arm?" A deep voice called from behind the young woman who was currently making side notes on a large piece of paper. She jumped in her chair and quickly turned to face Jasper Sitwell, the man who had hired her to take part in a government job that was too top secret for her to have details but not so much that they couldn't hire someone like her. She stared at him with soft green eyes, uncertainty lingering in them.
Swallowing hard she pushed her long black hair from her mocha colored skin, "I'll be done with it tomorrow." She said turning her chair around to give him her full attention.
His expression seemed to grow disappointed, "Will you be able to start tomorrow as well? A problem has come up and we need to work with urgency now."
Chloe frowned, "Um…do you have all the parts ready?" She asked, standing from the computer chair.
Sitwell sighed, "We have the subject ready. We need you to operate as soon as possible."
"Subject?" She eyed him warily; she was never supposed to work on anyone. She was there to design a robotic prosthetic limb that could help soldiers get back into war and be stronger. Chloe didn't exactly agree with the idea of sending amputees back into war but she had her reasons for accepting the job. "Sir, I've never worked on anyone before. Surely someone here is more experienced to do that than I am, I just make the blueprints. "
"We did have someone," he said reaching around his back and pulling out a gun, holding it in her face. "They're dead now, so we need you."
Chloe screamed and dropped down in a squatting position, holding her hands up in surrender, "Sir, please! I'm not qualified to operate, someone else, just hire someone else!" A glimpse of someone coming inside the small office caught her eye and she nearly sighed in relief. "Thank God, Brock, please—"
Wordlessly he grabbed a fist full of her hair and pulled her to her feet, ignoring her cry of pain. "Just do what you're asked." He growled leading her out of the room.
They walked down many corridors and went down a few elevators she hadn't known existed before they reached the lower level. She had cried and pleaded several times but they ignored her every word. What had she gotten herself in to? She was supposed to be working for people who wanted to make the world better, had she been lied to all along? Was she foolish for not asking more questions, knowing the job was too good to be true.
A scientist approached them as they walked towards a closed off room. He looked nervous and was unexplainably sweaty, "Sir, he's ready to be wiped but we're having problems with the machine. The crash is starting to take its toll."
Rumlow gripped her hair tighter and shoved her in the scientist's direction, "We've got her." He said nodding for him to open the door. When the bald man did Rumlow started barking orders at once, "Everyone out!"
People were working frantically around the room, pulling files and messing with cords that were under the flooring. "Fix this shit, we'll be back with the parts for his arm." Rumlow growled, releasing her hair with a shove that nearly sent her stumbling to the ground. Her eyes finally fell on him. Seeing the arm made of nothing but metal it didn't take a genius to know she was going to be working on him, the expression on his face was unreadable but she could feel anger seeping out of every pore.
"Don't look at him, don't speak to him, do not touch him until we are back, is that clear?" Sitwell had a serious look in his eyes that gave her chills and she nodded. He scoffed, "Good." His eyes flashed to the man strapped to the chair, "If she so much as mutters to you, kill her."
"What!" Chloe went to ran after them but being at the other end of a gun could really stop a person in their tracks. "This isn't what I signed up for! You can't just force me to do your dirty work! I won't!"
A laughed echoed in the now silent room, the only sound was an electrical hum. "I can force you to do what I please and you will fix the goddamn machine so you can get to work! I will kill your family, slowly, one by one, peel their flesh from their bones and make you listen to them scream if you don't fix the fucking problem in here." His voice was like venom and it sent chills all the way down her spine and up again.
The two men left the room, shutting the door behind themselves and Chloe stood there, staring at the door for several moments before she turned and started searching the room for another exit. Banging her fist on the walls and pushing against them, hoping there was a secret way out but nothing budged, but that didn't stop her from trying.
"You're wasting your time."
Her body froze and she looked over her shoulder hesitantly at the man strapped to the chair. Swallowing hard she slowly made her way around him before standing in front of him. She eyed him warily unsure of whether or not she could trust him. But seeing as he was strapped down, they didn't trust him either.
Speaking quietly so no one could hear outside the room, she glanced back before looking in his gray eyes, "Will you really kill me if I speak to you?"
He leaned forward, as much as the restraints allowed, "Do you really want to find out?"
Chloe woke with a start shooting straight up from her slumber, covered in a light sheen of sweat and panting. Why was she still dreaming about that? Her hand subconsciously touched a scar on her leg as deep thought crept into her mind, but she stifled it. It was too early to think of anything but sleeping more but she knew if she laid down she would only find herself finishing the dream she wished she didn't have to have. With a deep sigh she pushed the dark covers away from her body and she stepped onto the hardwood floor and sleepily walked out of her room and into the kitchen.
After everything had happened with H.Y.D.R.A., Chloe had been compensated for her suffering and to keep quiet. Only eight months had passed and it seemed like things were finally starting to settle down out there, in New York, but things hadn't calmed down in her mind. At first everyday had been a struggle for her but as time went on some days were just better than others. During the time recovering she had spent her twenty fourth birthday in a hospital playing cards with one of the nurses who had actually been very kind. Moving back home with her parents probably would have been the smart thing to do but she couldn't bring herself to tell them that she had been evolved with something so evil and inhumane.
Pulling the fridge opened she squinted at its brightness before finding an unopened bottle of water and twisting it open before taking a small sip. Maybe she should catch up on reading to kill time?
As she closed the fridge something glimmered from the corner of her eye and her heart instantly leapt to her throat she laid eyes on a man. Drawing in breath as an immediate reaction she opened her mouth to scream, water bottle falling from her hands as she stumbled towards the ground.
Then, it all happened in the same motion. A hand clapped over her mouth gently and the other caught the water bottle before snaking an arm around her back before she hit the ground. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and her heart was beating so quickly it was sure to pop at any moment. Green eyes locked with gray as she stared into the face of a man she never thought she'd see again and quite frankly she really hadn't wanted to.
James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier.
He slowly set her water down before laying her on the ground, his body nearly laying on top of hers as his eyes drifted from her to the hall that led to her front door. She shook her shoulders in hopes to get his attention but they were still looking off. The familiar jiggle of her doorknob sent her on high alert and she struggled beneath him.
Looking down at her with exasperated eyes he shook his head before pressing his finger to his lips. Against her will she nodded and he slowly removed his hand from her mouth. Without hesitation, Chloe scooted away from him and grabbed a long knife from the block on her counter, and pointed it at him, hand shaking, still kneeling on the ground. James eyes flashed dangerously at her, she knew what she had just done was absolutely moronic and was honestly surprised he didn't just kill her instinctively. Maybe he wasn't here for that?
"What are you doing here?" Why was she even talking to him? She saw what he could do, what kind of things he was capable of. "Are you here to make sure I—" He was behind her before she could even finish her sentence, his hand covering her mouth again. She could feel him breathing by her ear and she shivered against her will. "Be…quiet." He said barely above a whisper.
Her fear redirected itself and she realized he wasn't there to kill her, not yet anyways. She turned her head to face him, "What's happening? Please, I can't jus—" His growl silenced her and she felt him push her down to the ground as a small knife hit the cupboard she had been kneeling in front of. "Just can't keep your mouth shut." He said pulling a knife from his boot and throwing it out in the direction the other knife had come from.
"How can I when I don't know what's going on?" She hissed, standing from the ground only to be pushed down again, the knife falling from her hand. "Stop doing that!"
"Give her up and we'll let you live," a familiar voice called from around the corner. Chloe's eyes widened as she moved behind James now, still ducked down since he clearly wanted her that way.
"Brock?" His voice was unmistakable, the anger in it.
"It's been a while, Chloe." He said leaving the shadows of her hallway, "Sitwell needs you again, pack up."
"You can't just come in my apartment and order me around." She said glaring at him.
Rumlow laughed, "Don't start being brave now. If he weren't here you would comply with every word I say so how about we just pretend his isn't."
"Why does Sitwell want me? I thought you were all in custody? How did you find me?" She needed answers, if she was going to run she needed to why and where to go, she couldn't just go with it, there needed to be information behind her every decision, a reason why.
Rumlow rolled his eyes, "We need your expertise again."
Chloe took a small step forward but James shifted his body so it was as if she hadn't taken a step at all. She ignored it, "Why?" Her eyes shifted to James briefly. He was the only person she had ever truly worked on and he didn't seem like he needed it now and he obviously hadn't come with Rumlow. So what was he doing here? Had he been following her? She shuddered at the thought.
"I'm not interested in helping him or any of you." Which left her with the question of why was James in her apartment as well? He held his hand out in front of her and took careful steps towards the living room, silently urging her to follow and she did.
Rumlow laughed again, a darkness growing in his eyes. "Stand down soldier; we aren't here for you, not yet anyway. Remember, you belong to H.Y.D.R.A."
James's nostrils flared and he glowered at Rumlow, "I don't belong to anyone."
Rumlow leaned his head to the side, "Move in boys." The sound of boots stomping in made Chloe's knees weak as memories wracked her brain. She gripped the back of James black shirt to steady herself as they neared the corner of her living room.
Chloe banged on the door that she had entered, "I'm-I'm not fixing this…whatever it is!" She shouted. "They're going to kill me anyways." Her hand rested on the metal door and her forehead followed. But the thought of her family screaming in pain was plaguing her mind; she couldn't have that on her conscious. Wiping the tears from her eyes she turned towards the man in the chair. Die now or die later, those were her options and either way she wasn't walking away. "What does this do?" She asked walking over to him. He looked up and she stopped, fear struck her hard at the warning he had in his gaze.
"L-look, no matter what I do here, they're going to kill me and if this machine is to kill you, I'm not going to fix it." She said watching him cautiously now. "You help me and I'll help you." If he even needed help, he didn't exactly look overjoyed to be sitting there.
He continued staring at her which only made the panic intensify, she swallowed hard and took another small step towards him, beginning to grow desperate, "please."
It was impossible to know what he was thinking just looking at him; his eyes were directly on her, unmoving. It was if he was staring into her and not simply at her. It didn't seem like he was going to answer her at all and she remembered what his direction was, "Fine," she said dropping to her knees and reaching for the cords in the floor, "I'll just fix it and save my own ass."
A moment passed with her fiddling with the cords before he spoke, "You're a terrible liar."
Chloe stopped moving and continued staring down at the floor before she slowly looked up at him. "Excuse me?" Had he been speaking to her? It was more of a reaction than a genuine question; there was no one else in the room, so he had to be speaking to her.
"You are a terrible liar." He said again, almost annoyed he had to repeat himself.
"I wasn—"
"Its your eyes," he said, cutting her off, "they're unsure or you look somewhere else, it gives you away."
Chloe adjust herself so she was sitting with her legs tucked under her bottom and facing him, "Well if you can tell when I'm lying, you know that my offer to help you is true." She said trying not to sound desperate
"Why would you offer to help me when they just told me to kill you?" Civilians were strange to him. She knew nothing about him and all the people he had assassinated over the decades and yet without question as to who he was she held out a hand, offering to aid him. He wasn't threatened by her, then again no one made him feel threatened, and he could tell she had just been caught up in a web of lies and was tangled now.
"It's a memory wipe," he began, "That's all I really know other than it's for me."
Chloe frowned, "Why are they trying to erase your memories?"Who would do such a thing? What were they trying to keep him from remembering?
"I've done a lot of horrible things to people; they want to keep me willing to do those things." He said, never relaxing.
A shiver ran down her spine and she shuddered. Was she really about to help this man? "Would I be safer only helping myself?"
He didn't hesitate to answer, "Yes." What was the point in lying? He didn't intend on harming her though, he would gain nothing from it.
After a moment of contemplating her options she stood from the ground and walked towards him, "If you kill me make it quick." She said grabbing a screwdriver and jamming it into the back of the machine that held him and after a quick spark the locks on him released only before the machine sparked further and before she could process what was happening she saw his body in front of her and she flinched away from him, putting her arms in front of her face to try and block anything coming her way. But instead she felt arms around her as her feet were removed from the ground. Smoke swallowed them up and heat threatened to sear her skin. Her body twisted in the air before collapsing with another on the ground.
Shaking her head all she heard was a high pitched ringing that was making her dizzy. She opened and closed her eyes a few times trying to stop her blurry vision but it didn't help.
"You probably shouldn't have blown it up."
((Lemme know what you think. This is a pilot; I suppose is the best word. Just testing these two out. ))