When I came too, the first thing I noticed was the terrible taste in my mouth and the fact that my tongue felt two sizes two big. I forced my heavy eyelids open, then snapped them shut when I was greeted with brilliant sunlight.

I groaned and the memories came flickering back piece by piece, like when I tried fast-forwarding through a video and only caught glimpses of the whole movie. A man in a mask. A bionic arm. Steve Rodgers. Lights shattering. A needle. A now familiar panic sent my heart racing but my limbs still felt too funny to move. Instead I blinked awake and looked around, since that was all my muddled brain would allow me to do.

I was in the fuselage of a jet. Bright sunlight streamed in through the round windows on either side. I looked out the window next to my seat and could see cheery blue skies and the sleek wing of the plane. The last thing I remembered, I was leaving work well past sunset. How long was I out? I was seated in an ivory leather chair that was too comfortable to be a commercial jet. Velvet curtains sectioned off the back of the plane.

I swallowed, my throat feeling raw. Then I remembered screaming and choking and my attacker bashing my face against a car window. My fingers, which were still tingling from the sedative, went to my nose and I felt the white bandage across the bridge. The initial panic of waking up in a strange place settled and the pain set in again. My entire face ached and I groaned. There were few things I was self confident enough to say I liked. My nose was one, and if that one armed freak ruined the one good feature on my face, there would be hell to pay.

The velvet curtains parted.

"Oh good," said a thickly accented voice. "You are awake."

It was a German accent. He rolled his 'w' into a 'v' and made 'awake' sound more like 'avake'

I looked up as the man who entered the cabin took a seat across the mahogany table in front of me. He was handsome, but much older than me. His head was shaved and he wore a monocle over one eye. He was suited in an Armani that likely cost more than my rent. He smiled.

"How are you feeling, Miss Hunt?" he asked, almost sincerely.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

He crossed his hands over the table, his beady eyes flickering over my face.

"Vivian," he called over his shoulder.

A flight attendant entered, barley acknowledging that she saw me, battered, bruised and sitting there against my will. "Herr Strucker?" she asked.

"A glass of water and some aspirin," he said, "Bring me her file as well. And I will take an Old Fashioned."

She nodded and left.

The man turned to me. "Do you know who I am?" he asked and I shook my head. The motion made the headache thunder through my skull. I winced and he gave me a pitying smile.

"I am sorry about the nose," he said, "The Winter Solider has never been careful with his victims. Though I am sure Pierce warned him not to hurt you, these things do happen. We bandaged the nose before takeoff, so you should be healed within—"

"What?" I asked, suddenly very alert.

He looked slightly puzzled at my interruption. "It was a minor, hairline fracture so—"

"No," I said, "D-did you say Pierce? As in, Secretary Peirce? Head of SHIELD and member of the World Security Council?"

"Ah," he replied slowly, like he said something he shouldn't have. "Yes."

Before he could elaborate like I wanted him to, the curtain parted and Vivian the stewardess returned, placing two white pills and a glass of water in front of me, and the Old Fashioned in front of Strucker. I glanced down at the aspirin, hesitated, but took them anyway. I wouldn't be kidnapped just to be poisoned on a private jet, and the pain in by body was begging for relief. The water felt like salvation going down my dry throat, and as much as I hated taking anything offered to me by these people, I was grateful. Strucker's finger tapped across a screen, seeming to forget our conversation.

He mentioned Alexander Pierce's name. And my kidnapper he called the Winter Solider. The two were working together to plot my abduction. I waited for him to say something more, but he kept his gaze on the screen.

"Where are we?" I finally asked.

"Somewhere over the Netherlands, I should imagine. We will be landing shortly," he said, not looking up. The white screen reflected off his monocle. I tried to see what he was looking at, but I couldn't make out any details. "You slept for a very long time. Eighteen hours or so, I should say."

"Slept, or was drugged?" I asked with familiar snark. Strucker looked up at me, but instead of looking annoyed, he gave a half smile.

"Again, I am sorry about that," he said and took a sip of his drink. He sighed and sat back in the leather chair. "Born in Destin, Florida to Anna and Henry Hunt," he said and I realized he was reading my file. The thought made my stomach knot apprehensively. "Orphaned at age ten, graduated high school at age sixteen, studied at the Perelman School of Medicine with an undergraduate in genetics and biochemistry, employed at SHIELD for four years…very impressive resume Miss Hunt."

My fingers were gripping my water glass tight enough to shatter it, wondering how much information he had on me.

"W-w-what do you w-want?" I stuttered, took a deep breath, and tried again. "Why do you have that?"

I felt violated. This man before me, whose surname was the only thing I knew about him, was listing things off that a stranger shouldn't know. I had no idea where we were going, what kind of man sat across from me, and certainly no clue as to why I had been kidnapped, and yet Strucker read me my life like it was the cover story of Time magazine. Not that my life was ever front cover worthy, but nuance.

Strucker looked up at me, placing the tablet on the table between us. "I am just wondering why SHIELD employs you as a lab tech when your credentials far exceed analyzing bloodwork," he said.

It was a chichi answer to my question, so I didn't dignify an answer. I stared at him.

"Miss Hunt I represent a division of Hydra that has been operating under peace keeping missions in Sokovia. Our main focus as of late has been developing advanced weaponry, manufactured with the power from the Loki's Scepter—"

"SHIELD has the Scepter."

"Had, the Scepter," he said. "Hydra has been infiltrating SHIELD for years—"

I held up my hand to stop him.

"Back up," I said, "Peace keeping missions? You mean the negotiations SHIELD has held with the Sokovia rebels for the past year?"

Strucker pursed his lips, annoyed. "If you would just let me continue."

I nodded slowly, only because I had so many questions cramming themselves through my brain that the headache was coming back with a vengeance. I drew a breath through my nose, trying to calm down enough to listen to what he had to say.

"As I was saying," Strucker continued, this throaty German voice laced with irritation, "Hydra has been operating within SHIELD's ranks for years. We have had a hand in everything. Mission reports, financing, weapons manufacturing, communication; people from Alexander Pierce to the janitor on the third floor have been feeding Hydra valuable information—"

"Bernie?" I asked, my voice hitching slightly. The old man that mopped the training level after agents practiced was a soft-spoken, kind man. He once showed me pictures of his granddaughter.

"Bernard Vaughn is one of ours, yes," Strucker said. "Everything SHIELD has done has slipped right down the line to Hydra, including the Scepter. I was assigned to oversee the care of Loki's staff after the Battle of New York, but Director Fury kept his eyes, or rather, eye, on things a little closely after that. Sokovia was in disarray and served as a perfect guise. I began ordering Hydra agents, poised as SHIELD operatives, to the country for peace keeping missions. In all actuality we secured an old fort and turned it into our main base of operations. Using the Scepters energy, we have been able to create weapons of mass destruction, furthering the works of Schmidt and Zola."

Strucker finally paused, gauging my reaction as he took another sip of his Old Fashioned.

I didn't know what to say, at a complete loss for words.

It was impossible, an infiltration at that magnitude. SHIELD would have noticed if their ranks were dirtied by moles, especially if there were as many as Strucker said there were. Alexander Pierce was trusted, second only to Directory Fury himself. If he was a traitor, then how many more were there? I thought about my fellow lab techs and the doctors in the medical bay, wondering if any of them were secret Hydra agents too, and if I had ever divulged a piece of valuable information to them. I guess this was the one upside of being on the bottom rung of the medical staff; I didn't have anything valuable worth sharing because they never told me anything.

Sokovia peace keeping missions were a separate department from the med bay so, while I had heard about it before, I had no way of knowing if there was any truth behind the words. My knowledge of the crumbling country was limited to what I had heard passed in the halls of headquarters. All I knew was that they were sending troops out periodically to try and breach some pact of cease fire between the rebels and the government. If Hydra had laced itself within SHIELD's ranks, then I suppose Hydra agents setting up a base in war torn Sokovia was just as plausible.

I slowly set my now empty glass on the table, the tiny muscles in my fingers strained from gripping it so hard.

"You're lying," I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Strucker snorted. "Please, the only liar here is that oaf Director Fury."

He gave the information to me so plainly and unapologetically that I knew he had to be telling the truth, but this had been kept secret for a reason, and I couldn't see why he was telling me about Hydra's slow but deliberate takeover of SHIELD. If he wanted information about the Avengers from me, he wasn't going to get it. I knew almost nothing past morphine and surgical stiches.

"What does this h-have to d-do with me?" I asked. Strucker leaned forwards again and I leaned back in my seat, putting space between us. I didn't feel good. This didn't feel good. I suddenly wasn't sure I wanted an answer to my question.

"You graduated with your MD at twenty," he said, "Most doctors graduate in an average of ten years and it took you four—"

"Well they let me couple my residency with SHIELD employment so…"

He ignored me, a smart move, and continued, "You have a brilliant mind and have since you were very young, according to our records. I would like for you to join our ranks. Hydra needs a doctor like you."

The first thought that came to my mind was 'no way in hell' but something he said stopped the words from actually forming on my lips.

"You need a doctor?" I asked. "I thought you were building weapons?"

"We are," Strucker said and his lips split into a wicked grin that made me skin crawl. "We have touched on the subject of human experimentation but have not, unfortunately, reached a masterful level. Our current head doctor, Doctor List, has been…reassigned and is no longer able to focus all of his attention on our volunteers. We need a new young mind to help us harness the Scepters power and stabilize it enough to enhance homosapien ability."

I opened my mouth to respond, closed it, then opened it again.

"You—you're talking about taking foreign, alien matter and manipulating it enough to inject into humans?" I said disbelievingly.

Strucker gave a short nod. "That is the gist of it, yes."

I tried to speak again but the words failed me. Again.

What Strucker was talking about was near impossible.

Seeing the ludicrous look on my face, Strucker elaborated. "We've gathered a handful of Sokovian volunteers, completely willing to undergo human experimentation. The first experiments have all failed and Doctor List suggested we bring on some new minds to help solve the mystery."

"There is no mystery!" I snapped. "You're taking something extremely powerful and confining it to something extremely human! You're trying to shove a mooring rope through a needle!"

Strucker regarded me lazily, calmly. "We only have a number of willing volunteers left. If you help us, you could create the most advanced weaponry this century has ever seen."

"At what risk?"

"Sacrifice is necessary for the greater good. These young volunteers are fighting for a new country, a new world. They understand that. Hydra is merely helping them along."

"This is despicable."

"This is progress," Strucker said. "SHIELD has made their followers into cowards by telling them that no sacrifice is worth it, and yet they are more than willing forfeit their own morals for their own success. SHIELD is full of hypocrites."

I brought my fingers to my temples and rubbed my head, then winced. The bruising on my face throbbed when I touched it so I lowered my hands.

"Why me?" I sighed, feeling exhausted, despite spending the last eighteen hours unconscious. "I'm sure there are other Hydra doctors capable and willing. Why go through all the trouble of kidnapping me."

"Because whether or not you see it, you are one of the brightest minds this generation has curated," Strucker said and I resisted the urge to laugh out loud at his statement. I may be smart but my sentimentality and wisdom reached the length of a quarter. "And I have my reasons," he added as an afterthought.

When I made no attempt to argue, he continued.

"Director Fury has been undermining your abilities since the day he and Phil Coulson knocked on your foster parents' door," he said. I would have asked how he'd known about that, but a quick glance at the tablet holding my file told me I already knew. "It is time for you to live up to your potential, and Hydra plans to give that to you by offering free rein so long as you are willing to help us."

"And if I say no?"

Strucker smiled. "I will kill you. I am an amiable man, but I am still Hydra…and it is like you said. There are hundreds of other Hydra doctors waiting for the opportunity to show their skill."

Tears burned at my eyes because I knew he wouldn't hesitate to pull a trigger if I denied the offer. I turned to look out the jet's window swallowing the tears. Fuck. I was not going to let him see me cry, but the proposal laid before me was terrifying. Work for the enemy, or die. I wasn't stupid enough to attempt human experimentation that had failed up until this point, but I also wasn't noble enough to make a martyr of myself. A failed human experimentation likely meant one thing: death. It was either me or these Sokovian volunteers Strucker told me about. One of us died, either way. My hands, clenched in my lap, began to shake and I thought about the irony of how often I had joked about my death. Now that it was tangible, I wanted to take it all back.

Strucker turned to look out the window and I focused my gaze enough to realize we were descending over Sokovia's capital.

"Do not make your decision yet," Strucker said as though one was obviously more appealing than the other. "I would like for you to see first hand what we have accomplished at the base. You can meet some of the volunteers and talk with them. I am sure, in time, you will understand Hydra's convictions are not so radical. We fight for the same thing SHIELD fights for. Progress. Peace. A brighter future."

"By taking away someone's freedom?" I asked, my voice sounding hoarse as I held back the tears.

"Let us not be dramatic," Strucker replied.

We were silent the remainder of our flight.

I watched out the window as we descended, seeing Novi Grad valleyed between two mountain ranges, but registering nothing. My mind was busy frantically searching for a way out of this predicament, a loophole that would put me back in the States with the Avengers and Strucker and the rest of his Hydra murderers behind bars. When we touched down on a little air strip, I was still out of ideas. I toyed with the thought of making a run for it the moment my feet hit the concrete tarmac, but that was pushed aside when I saw two black SUV's pull up to the jet and armored Hydra agents file out, guns at the ready. I wouldn't get two steps before being shot down.

Strucker stood up and indicated for me to follow the stewardess towards the front of the plane. I did, dwarfed by his tall frame and hating the idea of him standing behind me. Vivian lowered the air stairs and Strucker and I stepped down towards the armed vehicles.

I didn't want this. I wasn't supposed to be tangled up in something like this. Kidnappings and science experiments and Hydra, that was what special agents and the Avengers dealt with. Not lab techs whose most dangerous injury on the job was a papercut. I glanced over my shoulder at Strucker. He indicated for me to climb into the SUV.

"Please," he said, "Do not make this harder than it needs to be."

I turned and ducked into the vehicle, two Hydra agents sliding in on either side of me, because I wasn't sure what else to do. I wasn't an Avenger. I wasn't a world class assassin. I wasn't even a commander like Maria Hill. I was Faye Hunt. A girl who was too chickenshit to tell Hydra I would rather die than strike a deal with them.