Warning: This is a OC/Steve Rogers fanfiction. Rated T for now but will be raised to M once I start getting closer to the end of The First Avenger for Explicit Sexual Situations (aka Lemons/Smut). Story will span from The First Avenger to Infinity Wars + with heavy crossover with the Thor trilogy. Please give the character/story time to expand and grow.


Prologue:

Tønsberg, Norway 1942


The worn boots slapped loudly against the wet cobblestone, echoing hauntingly through the empty village streets in the dead of night. Most of their people had chosen to flee in the days prior, only the squads of rebel soldiers and those too proud to admit defeat remained in the once quiet yet content village.

Einar let his shoulder take the brunt of the impact as he collided with the old temple doors. His body pushing past the unlocked wood with ease. "Olaf, they are here! They are here!" He warned the Church Keeper of the approaching convoy. The run from the woods had exhausted him and Einar felt the cold Norse air stab his heaving lungs with a vengeance. Close to collapsing, he found himself supported by two soft hands. A vision as lovely as always, not even her grim look of fear could distract from her beauty.

They need not ask who.

Olaf's face stretched into an even grimmer frown than usual. His grey eyes flickering to his young charge only briefly before turning away from them. With his usual succinctness, he gave a simple command. "Take her."

"Olaf-" The girl attempted to argue as he moved passed them. Einar regained his strength and pulled away from her, making quick work of lifting the thick wooden beam and barricading the doors.

"-Through the passage. Move quickly. Take no light."

Whatever rebuttal she had died on her tongue. The sound of gunfire breached the air. The rumble of vehicles growing closer as the village defenses were quickly overtaken. There was no time for warning bells now. Einar looked to her even more alarmed. "Hilda, we must go!"

"Olaf, come!" Brynhilda demanded.

"I will not go." Olaf stood his ground. "We have protected this ground for centuries. We will protect it till our final breath."

"Please." She gently begged.

Olaf, despite his age, straightened his hunched back, standing inches taller as he stared at the young woman he had watched over since the timid age of six. Now, nearly twenty years later, he saw the same lost blue eyes as the first day he saw her. "Be brave, Brynhilda." He commanded her for a final time, wonder and hopeless sadness in his own words as he regarded the woman she had come to be, more skilled, more powerful than even she yet knew. "Do not let them take you."

Seeing the old fool as a lost cause, Einar turned to the girl transfixed.

"Hilda, come! Your parents will want you with them-"

"I won't leave him." She spoke quietly.

A rumbling and whistle of mechanics stole his attention. Einar turned sharply to the door, throwing Brynhilda from his arms and out of the way. The door splintered apart, the ancient stone walls tumbling down in a merciless storm. Both villagers thrown by the wave of power.

Olaf ran to the fallen boy, moving rock and debris off him in an attempt to set him free. Instead, unseeing eyes stared ahead emptily, a heart gash splitting down the temple of his head and pooling on the dusty floor.

Brynhilda pushed herself up, her breath ragged and her wide eyes locked on the body of her fallen friend. His head turned towards her, blood pooling from his gash in a halo of red around his head.

Bree coughed, glaring through the cloud of dust as the intruder took shape. The metal battering ram withdrew, clearing the way for a small surge of German soldiers to swarm in and around them. Bree kicked out, closing her eyes as she fought against the hands that picked her up only to throw her against the wall and out of their way.

"Seize him!" Came the brutish order. The German soldiers wasted no time climbing over the rubble, pushing Olaf's old bones harshly to the ground as the marched past to secure the crypt.

Once shown to be void of all other life, they wasted no time in their defacing. Four of the soldiers surrounded the tomb of the nearly forgotten king carefully kept and maintained by the church's order. Brynhilda felt fury shake her as they attempted to open it.

Four men struggle to push the solid slate lid off, putting their whole body weight behind it only to receive strained muscles and frustrated growls in return.

"Open it!" Their commander yelled from his overwatch. "Quickly, before he g-"

He was silenced by the sight of the silhouette. Unmistakable even when obscured by the bright lights shining through the rolling fog.

His presence was felt long before he was heard. They, too, could feel the change as he arrived. The men snapped to attention. The heels of their boots clicking together sent a wave of silence through the temple as they waited for what would happen next.

Only the whistling March wind, cold and unforgiving as it brought the scent of smoke and gunpowder to her nose greeted her. Whatever pain she thought she felt was nothing compared to the sound of the crumbling rubble of her home rolling under his boots, softened for a moment, as he stepped carelessly on the body of Einar.

Her shoulders shook in equal parts, cold, rage, and fear as his steps grew louder. She inhaled the scent of gunsmoke as she steeled herself, daring to peek up at him from the curtain of her hair.

She knew his face as well as she knew her own.

Johann Schmidt.

If Heinrich Himmler was Hitler's right hand, Schmidt was his equally vile left.

She had seen his face often these past years in newspapers and through posters as he and his men tore through the Norwegian countryside in search of a treasure he seemed unable to obtain. The black ink could not hide it now. In the flesh, he looked even more inhuman. Pale skin pulled over a bony face, large brown eyes so prominent and yet seemingly void of any flicker of human emotion. It was what unsettled her the most about his visage. Soulless beyond that human face, he was more monstrous than any nightmare she's seen.

"It has taken me a long time to find this place." Schmidt looked around the crypt, a self-satisfied smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as his dark eyes scanned the room. "You should be commended." He sounded almost impressed as he nodded to Olaf. "Help him up." He ordered his soldiers.

Quickly complying, the old man was brought roughly to his feet before him. Schmidt stepped closer, leaning in under the guise of straightening his coat for him. Like being confronted with a serpent ready to strike, Olaf dare not look away.

"I think that you are a man of great vision." Schmidt tilted his head as he continued to straighten the disheveled layers, "And in this way, we are much alike."

Olaf was unflinching as his lips curled in a sneer. "I am nothing like you." His repulsion was evident in his calm words.

Schmidt almost smiled at the knowledge the difference between their stations was so clear. "No, of course." His stepped back to admire his handy work. "But what others see as superstition, you and I know to be a science."

Olaf shakily gave a sigh somewhere between a disbelieving laugh and a scoff. "What you seek is just a legend-"

"Then why make such an effort to conceal it?!" They were not prepared for his thunderous accusation, all sweetly hidden in a jovial tone as if an inside joke between friends. His head tilted in the direction of the crypt, knowingly.

When Olaf said nothing more, Schmidt removed his dark SS hat, handing it to a lowly private to hold as he passed.

Schmidt sighed deeply in relaxation, as if all his worries had disappeared by the mere touch of stone under his hand. He placed his hand on the top of the lid, taking a moment to admire the primitive, yet intricate carving of a once proud king. With a sudden push, Schmidt did what four other men combined could not. The tomb's lid slid off, crashing onto the ground and splitting the ancient stone.

Bree's eyes widened in fright, her breath choking in her throat at the unnatural display of strength.

Schmidt leered at the old king's skeleton, dressed in a nose finery in cloaks of fur and dyed linen. His sword resting atop him yet not grasped in his hands. Under those mummified fingers, forever being clutched close to guard, appeared to lay what he desired most.

He had stepped on Jan's body like it was just a small bump in his path, and with equal respect, he ripped the cube from the king's petrified fingers, breaking the bones and leaving them scattered.

"The Tesseract was the jewel of Odin's treasure room."

Schmidt admired the murky cube in his hand for a moment, surprised by the finely cut stone. "The Tesseract was the jewel of Odin's treasure room." He pivoted his body, presenting the prize to those in the room. His eyes locked with the old man's, unfazed as he carelessly let it roll from his hand and shatter against the floor. "It is not something one buries."

His foreboding eyes turned to Brynhilda, still staring at the shattered glass, avoiding his gaze as much as possible as she seemed content to lay half-curled on the floor.

Johann stepped closer, once more trying to intimidate Olaf with his undeniable presence. This was no nightmare they could wake up from or wish away. He was here, and he would not leave until he got what he had come for. "But I think it is close," he whispered to the crypt keeper. "Yes?" The word hissed through his teeth, curling around the old man's heart like satan's serpent itself.

Brynhilda felt the effects of the nod he gave his men. Hands gripped her arms and collar, their strength overpowering as he was nearly lifted into the air as she was pulled up and towards their leader. Her struggles were short and ineffective, stilling when he put a leather gloved finger under her chin.

Fear froze her, a chill like no other shooting through her veins. She looked into his eyes, wondering if this was the touch of death so many feared. The first bit of genuine emotion he showed was when his face went slightly slack in astonishment.

Her eyes... the most unnatural shade of blue. Near glowing in their dark intensity.

Perhaps the tesseract wasn't an "it", but a "who".

A quick glance over her thin and feeble form discredited that theory. Too young to be the thing of legend. Too meek to be the power of gods. No. No, she was not what they were looking for but he had no doubt she knew where it was...

Johann Schmidt had been quite the charmer in his youth and if fair maidens were as they always had been it would be quiet easy to make her tell him. "What is your name, girl?" He tried a lovely smile, knowing he as far out of practice for such things.

She sneered at his attempt at humanity. "Brynhilda."

Putting on a sympathetic face, he tisked and ran his finger over her apple cheek. She was too frozen in fear and rage to cringe like her body so desperately wanted too. Under her skin it felt like a swarm of buzzing bees threatening to lash out, numbing her into stillness.

"I cannot help your friend, Brynhilda." he looked at the fallen body of Einar. "No." It was too late for that. "But maybe you can help your village."

Her own eyes were too open. The glint of fear and threatening tears she so bravely tried to blink back gave her away.

"You must have some friends out there. A beautiful girl like you… Parents? Siblings? Some...some handsome young love, perhaps?" He near smiled. The simple act terrified her more than she thought it could. "I have no need for them to die." Outside, the massive tank's cannon gave a mechanical whirl as it adjusted its aim towards what remained of the town. Schmidt took some pleasure in the way her bright blue eyes seemed to dim at the prospect.

It was no mystery as to what would happen by the next words that came out of his mouth. Towns set ablaze till only ash was left, the feeble and defiant were executed by the hundred to clear them from Germany's ever-growing map.

Her brothers were too proud to be taken alive, her mother and father too old and sick to work...

They had not a chance unless she gave them one.

Brynhilda's eyes fell to the old church keeper beside them. The silent plea of forgiveness filling them entirely as a tear slipped down her cheek. With a calm that belied her numb body, she turned and looked towards the centuries-old carved wall.

With a single push, she was released from his grip, thrown back into the Keeper's arms. He wrapped her in his arms, trying to comfort her as if she was his own as they watched Schmidt figure it out.

Olaf's wisdom of the world going far beyond the temple he seemed to never leave. He knew how this would end, now he could only prepare. "Be brave." He told her. "They are but wolves in the clothing of men. Let them smell fear and they'll attack."

"Yggdrasil!" Schmidt hollered in glee. He recognized the symbol immediately, admiring the detailed carving that demanded the eyes' attention. "Tree of the world." His boots clanked on the stone tile omnisciently. Closer and closer until something caught his eye. He bent slightly to admire the little serpent that wrapped around one of the tree's roots. "Guardian of wisdom…" His gloved hand ran over the wood. Feeling the eye of the serpent give way, he pressed it further. "...and fate."

With a click, a secret compartment popped open, an indescribable thrill consuming the Hydra leader as he gripped its edges with reverence. Fate indeed...

"Don't." The warning was unexpectedly stern for the girl with tears in her eyes, her voice firm and commanding. Schmidt spared her only a glance before slowly opening the box.

A brilliant blue light illuminated his face and the wall behind him. All from a single cube inside. The cube itself seemed to hold lightning inside its walls, silently moving like a blue and silver storm in surge. Pure power...

"And the Führer digs for trinkets in the desert." Schmidt mused to himself. A victorious smirk took over his features, eyes managing to pull themselves away long enough to look at the Church Keeper and the girl. Amidst the awed occupants, the girl stood unfazed and tall. Suddenly, her eyes were no longer a mysterious shade of blue.

"You have never seen this, haven't you?" Schmidt challenged the elder.

"It's not for the eyes of ordinary men." The old man's eyes pointedly kept to the wall opposite them.

"Exactly." The lid was snapped closed by the flick of his thumbs. Dark eyes creasing in impressed mirth as he approached the duo. "How clever, then, to leave it to a woman." He appraised her carefully. There was no lust in his eyes, only intrigue. "But even a woman's tears can not help you." He tisked in mock pity while he collected his hat, handing over the prize.

"Give the order to open fire."

"No!" Brynhilda ran forward but was caught by the elder.

"Fool!" the elder yelled with a power yet unheard. "You cannot control the power you hold! You will burn!"

Schmidt was unperturbed. "I already have."

As Schmidt pulled his pistol from his side holster, Olaf's last words rung clear as a simple command. "Run."

Brynhilda pushed away from the man who had practically raised her, crossing the church with a quickness no one expected as she flew from the crypt keepers arms. She slid into a woven tapestry, seemingly swallowed by the wall before their very eyes. She surpassed a tormented cry at the sound of a gunshot behind her, muffled by the thud of distance but knowing full well it had not missed its target.

Two of the soldiers ripped the tapestry away, stopping their pursuit by the simple raise of Schmidt's hand. He looked into the black depths, no light illuminating the narrow passageway that seemed to split off.

"Till we meet again, Brynhilda!" Schmidt called into the dark tunnel, his words echoing in the cavernous maze of halls. He turned to the cube in his hand, watching as the storm inside seemed to cackle more lively. With an awed murmur he promised, "And we will meet again."

He turned towards the captain, giving one final order as he got into his car. "Leave none alive."


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