"Name." The interrogator demands, staring at me across the computer screens.
"Olivia Valentina Pierce." I answer, trying to keep myself from attempting to beat the lie detector, years of training screaming against my brain.
"Immediate family." He asks, though his tone is flat and harsh, he's not asking me. Asking would insinuate that I had a choice in my response, or lack thereof. They've already branded me as a traitor, but they don't know what I know, what Fury knew.
"Father, Agent Richard Pierce. Mother, Agent Linda Avery. Both deceased." I begin, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice. This man wouldn't care, but the man that trained me would, and despite my lack of loyalty to him the years he spent conditioning me are the reason I can't let my interrogator see any emotion.
"Do you have any relation to former Secretary Pierce?"
"Yes." I answer. He already knew that, he's just making sure that I won't lie, getting a baseline, probably hoping to catch me out. But he doesn't know that I have been able to beat a lie detector since I was seven. Even an impressive lie detector like this one. Just because Fury and Romanoff had a hand in building it, it doesn't mean that its perfect. "He's my uncle, and the man that built me."
"Would you like to clarify your statement?" He asks. I've grabbed his attention.
"My mother died during a mission and my father started to fall apart." I begin to explain, trying to keep my speech measured and even. If I talk too quickly, he'll make me tell him again, and I don't ever want to tell this story again. "Uncle Alex took me in and began teaching me things he thought my parents should have shown me sooner. I was sent to Russia and I became a child of the red room. They taught me how kill a man in seconds with my bare hands, among other things."
"You were trained by associates of Hydra." He nods, writing down my response with a grim look on his face.
But I'm not done talking. "By the time I was sixteen he deemed me ready to join SHIELD. He said that I had a purpose and I was inclined to believe him. But when I left the academy I was top of my class, exactly where they wanted me. I was approached by Director Fury when he began to investigate the Hydra threat, almost a year before SHIELD's fall. He knew that I was connected to Hydra and had me feed him information. I was more than willing to comply."
I notice my interrogator's eyebrow raise as he looks through the readings from his fancy lie detector. I'm telling the truth, and he knows it.
"We'll come back to this subject once we've finished conducting your review." He continues, apparently not interested enough to keep me strapped into a chair for hours. "Why did you come back to SHIELD? Why reach out to the people you've been trained to fight against?"
"I wasn't trained to fight against SHIELD." I smiled slightly, always amused by the lack of insight the men I worked for possess. "I was trained to be the perfect SHIELD agent. If there is one thing that you should have found out from Hydra's years in the shadows, it's that we were trained to be exemplary in our fields, to do nothing that would arouse suspicion. We were trained to be better SHIELD agents than those who joined SHIELD for all of the right reasons. Hydra didn't survive in the shadows for that long because we were trying to take down SHIELD, they built up the organisation, nurtured it and made sure that SHIELD thrived. SHIELD was a means to an end for HYDRA." I take a deep breath, watching my interrogator's response. "I came back to SHIELD because in all of my years in Hydra I was given a home and a family. I need to come back to SHIELD because it is the only way I can finish my investigation into my mother's death."
My interrogator continues writing down my response, an odd look now clouding his features. "Do you intend to betray SHIELD again?" He asks, and I can only laugh.
"It wasn't SHIELD I betrayed." I smile. "I betrayed Hydra. And I have no intention for SHIELD to fall again."
He nods, once again typing away at his computer, turning to face me once he is done. "Welcome back to SHIELD Agent Pierce." He smiles, a lanyard in his hand as he walks over to unhook me from the lie detector. "The Director is expecting you for an interview."
I smile politely to the man and accept the lanyard, itching to get my gun back from the guards stood outside of the room. Though I don't think they'll be willing to allow me to carry it until after I've spoken to the Director. I already know the man now sat in Fury's chair, though I'm not supposed to.
I walk over to the door, placing the lanyard around my neck. "Thank you for trusting me, Agent Koenig." I smile to the man. "Most wouldn't have even bothered to interrogate me."
He smiles back. "I'm a very impartial man. I like having evidence before I sentence someone."
I nod to the man, him now carrying a high place of respect with me. I walk through the door and notice the guards flinch before they see my lanyard. "Which way to the Director's office?" I ask politely, trying to ignore the confusion in the men's eyes.
After being pointed in the right direction, I move through the base, noting how similar it is to many of the underground bunkers I had been held in during my youth, though it wasn't too long ago. The brick walls are the main factor, most of the former SSR bases were built the same way. But the air feels different, warm and comforting, though it may just be the higher temperature.
"Pierce." A voice speaks, bringing my attention to the Chinese woman walking down a flight of metal stairs. She's not just any woman, but the one I'd communicated with on many occasions when Director Fury or Secretary Pierce wanted to operate around the red tape.
"Agent May." I smile, knowing the woman will be very suspicious of me.
"I hope you didn't beat Fury's favourite toy." She smiles, though it doesn't reach her eyes.
I return the smile. "No, though it did take a considerable amount of effort not to." I inform her, knowing she would have experienced the same feeling.
"The Director's office is up these stairs." She informs me. "The door's open so you can't miss it."
With a quick thank you, I walk past the woman and up to the Director's office, trying to decide if I want to feign surprise at his miraculous recovery after the fight on the Helicarrier. He is after all supposed to be dead. I quickly make up my mind as I reach his door, deciding to make our interaction more interesting.
"Director Coulson." I announce, reading his surprise in his micro expressions. He's a far better agent than most working for him, he can keep a relatively straight face. "I was told you were expecting me."
"And apparently you were expecting me." He notes, closing the file he was reading. "I just wanted to ask you a few questions before I give you an assignment."
I nod, standing in front of his desk, hands behind my back, feet shoulder width apart, the image of the perfect agent that was ingrained into me all of those years ago. "I assume most are about my previous connections with Hydra."
He smiles. I was right.
"I just wanted to know about your interactions with Directer Fury before he was killed." He explains, pulling open another file. "You met with him 23 times in the year before his death."
"And three times since then." I add, testing out my new decision to tell the truth. "I am well aware that he is alive. In fact, he sent me here when we met in Europe."
The Director nods, looking back over the information in front of him. "Can I assume that you were feeding him information about Hydra's movements?" He asks, though he isn't curious, he's simply done trying to gage what information I know.
"Yes I was." I nod, a small part of me still blaming myself for his brush with death. He wouldn't have needed to go into hiding if it wasn't for me feeding him Hydra's secrets.
"Do you still have contact with Hydra?" Of course is his next question.
"No." I answer, though it isn't the complete truth, so of course my new resolution to tell the truth kicks in. "Actually yes. I've been trying to track down my handler. The red room may still be operational and I would like to bring an end to it."
Coulson's eyebrow raises. "Is that a yes or a no then?" He asks.
"Yes, but not so that I can rejoin Hydra." I answer.
"Who's your handler?" He asks me.
I suddenly feel less inclined to give him the information given that he is only a myth to most of the intelligence community. If I hadn't had to report to him for conditioning every 2 years, I'd have attributed him to being drugged every day for years. But he is very real.
"The Winter Soldier."