A/N - Here it goes, the long awaited sequel for Don't You Worry Child. Actually, I don't know how many of you have been waiting for this and this isn't even the beginning of the book per se more like a catch up on what's happened previously. Then again, the first chapter is so close to finished that it won't be long before you get it. In other news, this story is going to be really interlinked with Civil War so if you haven't seen it and don't want spoilers, I apologise but you may have to wait until you've watched the film to catch up. Actually, if you haven't seen it, why are you reading my fanfic? Go out and see the movie!
Disclaimer: I do not, unfortunately, own Iron Man, Captain America or the Avengers. All characters barring Samantha Stark/Maria Thomas are the property of Marvel.
Also Trigger Warning: Basically every single bad thing that could happen (sexual assault, child abuse, PTSD) gets brought up at some point or another.
Previously in the Samantha Stark Chronicles:
"My name is Samantha Montgomery, my mother is… was Audrey Montgomery. I – apparently I am Tony's daughter,"
"Dad I can't guarantee I won't end up in another situation where a gun will be used on me," she argued.
"How do you feel about Samantha?" Tony asked after shutting the door.
"Uhh… I don't think that's any of your business," Steve replied defensively.
"Now what?" she asked softly, her eyelashes fluttering.
"Now… we kiss," he said before leaning in and pressing his lips to hers, their tongues battling for dominance as she snaked her arm around the back of his neck. When they finally broke for air, both had dreamy smiles on their faces.
"In light of recent events we would like to train Samantha for S.H.I.E.L.D. and recruit her as a part of the Avengers Initiative," Fury finished.
"Samantha! You are not going to join S.H.I.E.L.D!" Tony ordered.
"She's –" Pepper began to pick up but found herself being interrupted by Tony.
"Samantha is my daughter," he stated, a large, cheerful grin etched across his face.
It wasn't long before Natasha returned to the room with one thing to say "I just got a phone call, Fury resigned as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Who's replacing him?" Steve asked, his voice showing a reserved concern unique to only him.
"Coulson," was Natasha's frank response.
"Fury tried to play God and last person who did that tried to destroy New York,"
"Actually Loki was a literal god. Well, a Demi-god but you know he was still God of Mischief and Evil," Samantha corrected.
"That is completely beside the point. Fury did what we were working to prevent. He played God and he needs to be stopped," Steve argued.
"No Fury did what he thought was right to save one of the best agents S.H.I.E.L.D. has seen in years!" Tony retorted.
Name: Audrey Lucille Montgomery
Date of Birth: 11/05/1975
Alias(es): Anastasia Grace Rebecca Abramovitch (1990 – 1994); The Maiden (Code Name)
Affiliations: HYDRA (1990 – 1997; 2001 – 2014)
Since beginning her education, Samantha has proved to disagree with HYDRA morals but also shows great intelligence, gaining herself a double major in Law and Communications from the University of California, Los Angeles.
*Amendment: Despite her clear disagreements with HYDRA ideals, Samantha Montgomery could prove an asset to HYDRA at some stage but only through her own death.
She took in a deep breath and said "Peggy Carter's dead," her voice hushed as she said it.
"My mom worked for HYDRA,"
"What?" he boomed "So this whole thing between us was just a ruse so you could get information?"
She walked closer, she put her hand on his cheek but he just swiped it away "No. I… I didn't know that she was HYDRA until a couple of weeks ago when Coulson told me about it,"
"There's a prisoner," he started, Coulson seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the line of conversation and Samantha had to wonder why "He was a double agent. We need Intel from him but he says that won't give it to anyone but you,"
"You've got quick reflexes, quicker than the average person, right? And you're good at running, probably swimming too. When you were young enough not to fight against it we injected you with serums and then removed your memories of those experiments. But there's a trigger for you to be able to remember it all again," he explained.
"We messed with your genes, made sure to keep things like hair colour and skin colour the same but we messed with the ones that influenced your physical abilities," he answered pulling his hand away from her reach "Things like speed, strength, reflexes, that sort of thing. There was no need to mess with the genes that influenced intelligence because you were already pretty intelligent,"
"We were trying to mimic what was done to Steve Rogers, that's Captain America in case you didn't –"
"Who ordered it?" He stared blankly at her "You can't tell me you don't know who ordered a like that,"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he mumbled.
"Try me. I've heard some pretty unbelievable things in the past couple of months," she smirked.
"Red Skull," he answered and she had to prevent her jaw from dropping.
"What would you say if I proposed to Pepper?" he asked carefully and quietly, almost as though she were a deer and he was attempting not to scare her. He looked tense and worried.
"Samantha honey. I was wondering when you'd call," her mother said, her tone sickly sweet.
"You're supposed to be dead," the teenager growled, her voice low and gravelly with rage.
"So are you my sweet,"
"Don't you dare call me that. You think you have a right to call me that after what you did? Now where. Is. Steve?" Her tones formed a crescendo of pitch and volume as her anger grew.
"She's your mother, what's going to happen if it comes down to a gun fight or a knife fight?" Coulson asked.
"Same thing as with any other enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D. I'd try and overpower her and make it so that I could bring her in. If it came to a point where I had to choose between Steve's life and hers I'd choose Steve's," she explained, there was no sentiment to her voice at all, this was business.
"Guys I-I shot her, she… she'd dead, I've killed her," she said, the girl had never killed before, that was clear and now she was panicking. Immediately, they exited the car and ran towards the building.
"I am a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and a patriot. Are. We. Done. Here?" she asked, really wanting to escape this oddly claustrophobic room.
The moment she left the building, leaving the journalists behind her, she noted that the street was quiet except for one black limousine. It looked like one of her father's so she thought nothing of it until a handkerchief was put in front of her mouth. Before she had the chance to even think, she had breathed in the chloroform and was quickly sound asleep, being bundled into the black limousine.
"You've been gone for three years Samantha," he said and she looked at him in utter disbelief.
"You have a little sister," her father told her with a smile, the smile that she knew to be the one of paternal love.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. would like for you to continue your training at our facility dedicated to the Avengers upstate. Would you be willing?" he asked and she smiled.
"You know Fury, that might be the best thing I've heard all night,"
"The last thing I remember is leaving the senate hearing, okay Steve? After that, it's all just a blank and I don't know whether that's because whoever took me took my memories or because I got rid of them as some warped coping mechanism. I have to keep reminding myself of everything that I've missed. I have to remind myself that I have a little sister, that Clint has a wife and three kids, that Nat and Bruce are together, that you have a girlfriend. And, the one person who I would normally go to with this sort of thing is being shockingly hostile. So, excuse me for thinking that maybe I have a right to be confused! Excuse me for trying to figure out what the hell is going on and excuse me for thinking that you might understand!" she roared.
"A couple of months ago, I saw a video of a girl who looked almost exactly like you, except she had pink hair. It wasn't until you came back that I realised that it must have been you."
"Nat, what… what happened to HYDRA?"
"It was weird, one minute all of them were there. Then the next they were being killed off one by one. Rumlow was the last one… After Rumlow died, S.H.I.E.L.D. practically threw a party, nobody really cared – HYDRA was gone, there wasn't anything else to it," Natasha explained and Samantha felt somewhat spooked.
"Nat and I started investigating into my disappearance and she's pretty convinced that it was the Red Room that took me."
"You see, we made you our toy. You were fun to play with, you fought at first but then you just… succumbed. With the amount of playing we did we couldn't allow any possibility for you to have children, so we had you sterilised," he answered, his face as stoic as hers had once been. Meanwhile, Samantha was having difficulty pulling herself together after that revelation.
He was going to kill Volkov, he decided. Samantha didn't deserve this, it was killing him that they hadn't found her in time for her to be spared this suffering. He found the cell Volkov had been moved to and walked in, shutting the door behind him. "Ah, you must be the Super Soldier, Steve Rogers, correct?" Volkov said and Steve glared at him "You know she used to tell herself that you would save her? She used to say it in her sleep 'Steve will save me, Steve will save me' it was so annoying. We had to tape her mouth shut when she slept," Volkov said and Steve snapped.
He grabbed a hold of the Red Room recruiter's neck and pushed the man against the wall "How dare you? You bastard!" Steve yelled, wanting so much for the man's head to fall limp against the wall "Samantha Stark is one of the best people you will ever have the courtesy of knowing and you treated her as though she were some play thing. She didn't deserve any of what you did to her. You are the scourge of the earth!"
"Da Vinci made a prophecy on his deathbed. He said that a Stark and a Montgomery would meet and fall in love. From that relationship a daughter would be produced and she would be beautiful, intelligent and – most importantly – undefeatable," Louise explained and Samantha rolled her eyes.
"I got shot Dad," she said almost breathlessly before continuing, her voice louder and more exasperated "I got shot in the shoulder whilst wearing a bullet-proof vest by my ex-boyfriend who it turns out was a Red Room operative sent to watch me and – apparently – de-virginise me. This, after a woman who I thought was my friend revealed herself as yet another Red Room operative. Oh and there's some weird prophecy that somehow can only apply to me. Oh and as if that's not enough it turns out that for the better part of a year while I was missing I was a plaything for some bastard and his co-workers!"
She heard Sam take in a deep breath and knew that whatever it was he had to say, it wasn't going to be good "I don't know how but Bucky was expecting us. The bastard shot Steve and I had to get him out of there as quick as I could,"
She flicked through to an image of Steve, he was smiling his bright laughing smile. She'd said something funny and just taken the photo. They'd had plans to use it as his Facebook profile photo at one point before her mother had kidnapped him. She showed the photo to Bucky, expecting some kind of reaction but, alas, nothing "You see this man? That's Steve Rogers, A.K.A Captain America A.K.A. the man you shot this afternoon. Also, there was a point about 75 years ago when the two of you were best friends," she told him, if looks could kill well than by now Bucky would be dust.
"I don't keep friends," he said in his Russian-American hybrid accent and she continued to glare at him, her eyes narrowed to the point where they were almost slits.
"I… I want to ask Samantha to marry me and I figured I should run it by you first," Steve said and Tony smirked.
Noting that the way seemed clear, she entered the lab but was shocked by what she saw: Her father, tied to a chair, duct tape over his mouth, bleeding profusely from multiple stab wounds, his head lolling to the side on his shoulder. Attempting to set all emotion aside, she put her agent hat on, took her phone out of her pocket and dialled 911, knowing an ambulance would be necessary "911 what's your emergency?" the trained, almost robotic, woman on the other line answered.
Dearest Samantha,
You know what you did to my father, Alexei Volkov, and now it is time that I returned the favour. Except it will be worse to do, you will be forced to watch as your father's life falls to pieces.
Ta-ta Darling,
Karolina Dvoracek
P.S. Do you like my knife skills?
"When I interrogated Volkov, Fury told me that Karolina wouldn't be a problem, she was just an accountant, didn't even like her father as far as they could tell. He handed me evidence to prove it – letters explaining how much she hated her father. I had no reason not to believe him," she said sighing "Then, the cops give me a letter they found at the crime scene – one that was addressed to me – signed by Karolina, explaining why she had tried to kill Dad, that it was this misplaced revenge thing because of Volkov's death and I can't help but think that… if I hadn't have brought Volkov in then the attack on Dad wouldn't have happened," she explained, tears starting to fall from her eyes as she finally managed to explain why she had felt so guilty.
"I-I had a plan for this but I feel like this is more befitting, so…" he trailed off as he got down onto one knee, searching his pockets until he found a duck egg blue ring box. He opened it to reveal a diamond ring – cushion cut with a ring of pink diamonds surrounding it, surrounded by another ring of white diamonds – "Will you… you know marry me?" he asked nervously, sweat beginning to form beads across his brow line. She smiled, tears in her eyes as she nodded yes. He slid the ring onto her finger – a perfect fit.
"Good job with the Dvoracek case, even if you weren't supposed to be involved," he said and she rolled her eyes.
"You knew that I wasn't about to just leave it to S.H.I.E.L.D," she responded and he turned to face her "I keep asking myself though, how was she able to get past the emergency protocols?"
"Samantha," he interrupted, a warning look in his eyes but there was something else there: shame, guilt, she'd never seen those appear in the eyes of Nicholas J. Fury before. This was unfamiliar territory for her, possibly for anyone.
"Because – last I checked anyway – the only non-Avengers who had the codes to override them were you, Coulson and Maria Hill," she finished, she'd been desperate to get the words out since she saw him. "And let's face it, Coulson wouldn't do it and nor would Maria, that leaves me with one suspect, so I'm asking you, why did you give Karolina Dvoracek the codes?"
They were hit by a shockwave of the smell as it hit them as they opened the door and then they saw it: a body, one they could only guess was Fury, slumped against a shelving unit, rotting.
"This little girl is Emma Montgomery, your niece," Jennifer stated and Samantha's eyes bulged, how on earth could her niece be here? "Somebody called us with concerns about her, and it's either you two or foster care," Samantha nodded in response, slyly looking up at Steve, wondering whether he had anything to do with this. She looked up at Steve, this time more obviously, could they really look after a five-year-old? With work being the way it was? Steve just nodded, as though he knew all of her worries for this young child off bat.
"Emma?" Samantha said, crouching down to the child's level, the way Jennifer approached her stated that it would be better that Emma go with Samantha and Steve than into foster care, Samantha knew it would be better "I'm Samantha, your aunt, would you like to come live with me?" she asked and the little girl nodded repeatedly, almost excitedly. Samantha smiled to the girl and Jennifer smiled gratefully to her – as though this were some big stress off of her shoulders.
"I'd steal money from her purse and buy Burger King for lunch instead. There was one just on the way to school and I walked there on my own anyway. Mom found out and hit me, pretty hard. My teacher noticed and called Social Services. They noticed the state of the apartment and put me in a foster home. It was run by a couple. The woman, Elise, was nice, her husband, Jeremy, was cruel. He would tell me that I was getting fat one minute and then the next he would tell me to eat more. Then, one night, Elise had to go out and she left me alone with him and I knew, I just knew that…" she trailed off, unable to admit what that cruel man had done to her. She barely felt it anymore – the hurt, the idea that she might be damaged goods – sometimes, on her lowest days, it crept up on her but she shoved it to the side, prioritising everything else over that feeling.
"So what is it I'm in for? Your men didn't tell me when they dragged me in here," she spat bitterly, her swelling cheek throbbing and aching. She glared at the tall, lanky man in front of her as he smiled, his eyes revelling in a cruel taunt.
"Well," he began in his English accent, extending the vowel sound far longer than necessary "You and your friend Miss Maximoff blew up a bank,"
"Then you'd know that there wasn't a second in which I could have blown up that bank, don't you Agent Thompson?" she retorted "And anyway, one of your guys punched me, I have the bruise to prove it," she added, allowing the claim of unnecessary brutality to settle.
Still, Thompson ignored it "Except we have video footage of you and Miss Maximoff leaving the site of the wreckage of the bank carrying $400,000 between you,"
"Samantha I know you, you'd never harm innocent civilians just for money and neither would Wanda, so blowing up a bank is beyond you, now take the bag and run!" she ordered as she uncuffed the brunette who proceeded to run as fast as she possibly could out to Clint's car.
The familiar piercing sensation of a bullet hit Samantha in the back, right in the rib cage and she had to resist the urge to keel over in pain as she ran up the stairs to the roof. She panted hard as the realisation hit her that there was no way out. She listened for footsteps, meanwhile, Skye walked to the edge of the rooftop "Fitz fixed the cloaking device," she called out before jumping off. Wanda followed suit and Samantha – understanding that she was out of other options – leapt from the roof and landed, rather ungracefully, with a thump, bashing her head on a cold, hard surface as what remaining air she had was knocked out of her.
The woman looked down at Samantha's fragile body, glistening tears making their trail down her tanned cheeks "I'm Samantha's mother," she admitted, biting her lip in a vain attempt to prevent further tears.
Skye looked to Wanda then to Fitz and Jemma - who were flying the jet – in complete disbelief "That's not possible. I've dealt with Samantha's mom; I've dealt with the wreckage she causes. Trust me, that bitch is dead,"
"That's what I wanted people to think,"
Samantha was born on 25th March, the same day – and in the same hospital – as Audrey's baby. A lucky coincidence that the Fates decided upon I'm sure. It was on that day that I was called back to Olympus and I switched the two: Audrey's sick, dying Samantha for my beautiful, healthy Maria. I removed all powers she would have as a demigod and manipulated her facial features so that she would look more like Audrey than she would me.
"Who are you?" the younger woman seethed.
That was how the woman came to explain who she was – Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth and virginity; the protector of young girls and, perhaps most important of all, Samantha's biological mother. That was also how Samantha came to let out a blood-curdling, ear-piercing scream of frustration, anger and – for some reason – fear.
She gripped onto the metal bar on the left side of the bed tightly as though prepping for impact until, suddenly, it got too hot. Quickly, she took her hand off the bar and saw it glowing orange, that same glow that came on freshly welded metal "What the hell?" she exclaimed, confused.
"I guess you're one of us now," Wanda said, a small smile on her face.
"Yeah, what exactly are we? Like do we have some kind of cool super-group name or…?" Samantha joked, still trying to maintain a sense of normalcy. Humour was just one of those things she used as a coping mechanism it seemed.
"Jemma calls us inhumans," Skye explained, seeming almost annoyed by the name and Samantha couldn't quite find it in her heart to disagree, even she could admit that it seemed just a tad alienating.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. have taken Steve, Emma, Tony, Pepper, Sophia and Vision and they're prepped and ready to parade them round as though they were involved in the original bombing,"
"There's always a choice. Yes or no; good or bad; right or wrong. There is always a choice," Samantha responded before turning away to look out the window.
The gun was in her hand, tears were in her eyes, she shook violently as a cocktail of emotion overtook her. The only way to help him was to harm him – oxymoronic, she knew but there it was. She looked into Steve's blue-green eyes "I'm sorry," she said as she pulled the trigger, closing her eyes as the bullet hit his knee. He howled out in pain and she took off at a run, knowing that agents would be on her tail in a matter of seconds.
"Our names are Maria Thomas and Wanda Maximoff. We're deep cover operatives for MI6 and we request asylum from the U.S. government,"