I own virtually nothing but some OCs and the Fox. The rest all goes to Stan Lee.
And yes, I've somehow gotten into Marvel again.
"What do you want?"
"To deliver a message." The voice on the other end of the phone was like that of any normal man with a bad smoking habit, but the oily undertones beneath those four words made the man who had answered the cell shiver. "We want the package returned."
"Why?" the man asked harshly. "More than ninety percent of our success has been because of your little gift. Why the hell would I give that up?"
"No arguments. I expect it secured, frozen and completely undamaged in three days. No exceptions. Or we will destroy you." The call ended there.
The man swore vehemently, then threw the cell back on the table. Well then.
Blissful summers.
Harsh winters.
Numbness.
Pain.
"Till the end of the line…"
Pah.
The man in the gray hoodie and baseball cap glared at nothing. Half-memoried swirled through his head, sometimes ringing with the phantom pains in the amputated-then-replaced-with-a-metal-arm left shoulder, sometimes corresponding with the rare moments he thought about It.
It.
His mission.
The one mission he couldn't complete.
The Winter Soldier hissed. He'd been blocking the thought of that impertinent Captain as well as he could, but his walls were crumbling, and he somehow knew that it wouldn't be long before he either let himself be found, whether by HYDRA or Him, or sought out one or the other himself.
Doubtful he would do the latter anyway, but who knew.
Now, if the employees at this run-down diner agreed to keep their mouths shut, he might just get a better meal than scrounging in the fenlands…
…scrounging in the Dumpster.
HYDRA agent Rick Lee glanced around nervously.
Then immediately admonished himself and stood stiffly. Showing fear was not a HYDRA-acceptable habit. Especially when dealing with A.I.M., and the little present the Advanced Idea Mechanics were returning.
Lee had never seen the Fox in person, but had heard the rumors. And if any of them were true… well, for once he was glad to be with HYDRA and not S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers.
Lee and his partner, Maverick, waited for three hours. Then, from overhead, they heard the sound of chopper blades. Lee looked up in time to see a searchlight from a (probably stolen) Mi 26 as the large rotorcraft descended for landing. He and Maverick stepped back as it did so, approaching once the blades had slowed reasonably.
"You got the package?" Lee shouted at the pilot, who had just disembarked.
The man grimaced. "Yeah, she's in the back. Say, know why you need 'er again? Damned useful, she's been."
Lee shrugged, then said over the wind "I know as much as you do, but it's because of the skills ingrained into the Fox that we need her. I've been hearing that the frontlines have need of another assassin after the fiasco in D.C.—I'll assume you've heard about it?" At the pilot's nod, he continued, "Somehow the Soldier went haywire. We haven't been able to contact him, nor has he allowed himself to resurface. We're trying to get to him before the Captain and his friend do."
The pilot nodded again. "Well, p'raps you'll send the Fox back once you're done with 'er, eh? The boss 'ad been planning on using 'er for another mission, last I 'eard." As he spoke, they reached the back of the copter. The pilot opened the door, allowing Maverick and Lee to climb in.
In the center of the space within the machine was a tall cubical, chained to the helicopter's interior, shelled in black metal, and with a single blue-lit fogged-over window in the top. Maverick went up to the cryo-chamber and rapped his knuckles sharply against the smooth metal surface, then stepped back in satisfaction as nothing happened. Maverick, though mute, had plenty of experience with the Winter Soldier, so knew what to expect with frozen assassins.
Especially deadly ones.
Maverick signed something to Lee, who said, "Unhook the chains and help me get the pod to the door; Maverick here'll get a trolley." As the mute went to do just that, Lee and the pilot unhooked the heavy chains from the bottom and top of the chamber, then somehow maneuvered it to the open door of the helicopter. By the time they had done that, Maverick was there with the trolley waiting for them. He helped get the pod onto the trolley, then positioned himself to push it back to the hangar. The pilot waved and boarded the helicopter once more, and as soon as Lee and Maverick had gotten out of range, the Mi 26 lifted off, flying away.
Leaving Lee and Maverick to wheel the trolley with the cryo-chamber back to the base.
Sam Wilson sighed and collapsed onto the—surprisingly comfortable—motel-room bed. The past few weeks had been nothing but nonstop driving.
And looking out the window.
To no end of fields filled alternatively with boring, waving grass, wildflowers (though those were often quite pretty), and taller-than-their-vehicle cornstalks. Cornstalks.
He groaned as he stretched his stiff arms over his head. "Why are we in Kansas again?"
"Texas, not Kansas. And you know why," answered the blond man who had sat himself on the opposite bad and was neatly unpacking what he would need for tonight from his backpack. Sam saw a change of clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant and a pair of red gloves. Leaning against the corner of the bed was a circular, American flag-themed shield, which Sam knew could pack a punch.
"Why do you need the gloves and nothing else from the suit?" Sam asked in confusion.
Steve Rogers looked up. "Because of the magnetics in the gloves. Keeps the shield on track for my arm and not my face when it ricochets back to me." Without another word, he stood, picked up some of the stuff he'd unpacked, and entered the bathroom.
Sam sighed again. Oh, he knew alright.
Well, here you go.