Hey y'all! So the previous chapter was obviously set in the events during or shortly after Captain America Winter Soldier. Now we jump ahead to events following Avengers Age of Ultron, with Kona having been held hostage for the time in between.
Enjoy!
A muffled cry sounded from outside the laboratory door, outside where reality existed. She hardly cared anymore. She'd given up on caring almost as soon as they'd captured her three months past. Or was it six? She didn't even know anymore. For all she knew the outside world could have passed on thirty years without her. In here it didn't matter, she had plenty to keep her company. The "doctors", the scientists, the pain.
So much pain.
Why she hadn't died yet was a mystery to her, for she had practically given up on living. There was nothing left for her out there anymore, nothing but the stench of death that Hydra left in its wake. Everything she'd worked for snatched from her grasp as her last agent lay dying in her arms, her best friend and practically family; her own heart slipping away as his cold blue eyes clouded over and gazed into nothing. And just when she thought they would have enough humanity to leave her to succumb to her wounds in peace, they came for her.
By now she'd stopped begging for sweet release and lay still, in silence, lost to the world, for no one was coming for a woman who wasn't known to exist in the first place.
A sudden bang sounded at the wall, followed immediately by a flood of bright light. Was this it? she thought. Was this her life finally slipping into a place beyond? Would she finally discover the answer to the age old question of where she was going?
A large, dark silhouette appeared in the doorway and approached the table upon which she lay. Strong hands lifted her body with surprising gentleness. "Oh Kona," he whispered sadly, his voice deep and rich like dark chocolate. "What have they done to you?"
She knew that voice, but from where? Her mind was too ravaged to process anything but one thing she knew for certain: someone knew her name.
"Who is she?" Cap wondered aloud as he peered through the glass to the infirmary. The doctors were just finishing up their evaluation and treatment of the many wounds on the woman they had retrieved from the Hydra base.
"I was wondering the same thing," Natasha commented as she quietly approached him. Steve turned to her with an eyebrow raised.
"You don't know her either?" he questioned.
She shook her head. "No, which is what bothers me. I know a lot of people influential with Fury but I've never even seen her. And get this," she said showing him the tablet in her hand, "I ran her facial recognition through every database I could find and turned up nothing."
"Nothing? No passport or driver's license?"
"Not a thing. It's like she doesn't even exist. Either this mystery woman has been living in the Himalayas her whole life or she has some big secrets to keep. I'm willing to bet on the latter. I found this among her belongings we retrieved from where she was held."
She swiped the screen to show him an image of some sort of symbol sewn into dark clothing, likely a sleeve. The symbol was that of a rising bird, some sort of eagle or falcon, its wings stretched out overhead with the letters IMIA above its tips and three white slanted bars beneath its tail.
"Did you run this symbol through?"
Natasha nodded. "Turned up as dry as when I tried facial recognition."
His brow furrowed. "Did you ask Fury about it?"
"Not yet."
Steve Rogers pondered this silently. What secrets were so highly classified that even Stark's tech hadn't been able to find? And how was this connected to the former SHIELD director Nick Fury? The director had been strangely cryptic about his reasons for not only rescuing this woman, but also calling in the Avengers to ensure her safety. His experienced gut told him that there was something big at work here that they just didn't know yet, and he didn't like not knowing.
He finally turned back to Black Widow. "I think it's about time Fury gives us some answers."
"Who is she?" Cap ordered as he walked into the study, Widow in toe.
"Nice to see you too, Rogers." Fury commented passively from his place in a large cushioned chair.
Ignoring his attempt to dodge the question, Natasha continued. "Who is so classified that not even our systems can identify her?"
"That's something I would like to know," Stark said from behind them, surprising Cap that he had been curious enough to attend. "I don't like it when someone manages to evade my tech."
Fury sighed, obviously understanding that they weren't going to leave until their questions were answered. They had a right to know.
"You may want to sit down," he said motioning to the couch across from him, "This could take a while."
Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, and Natasha Romanov took their seats in the various chairs, eyeing him warily. Fury scratched his chin thoughtfully, trying to find where to begin.
"In the early days of SHIELD, Agent Carter and Howard Stark had to consider various countermeasures for protecting us should our security be under threat. They knew that if SHIELD was to someday be infiltrated there would be grave consequences if precautions weren't taken. So they decided on a solution that was so highly classified its secrets were passed down only verbally from director to director.
"They decided…" he paused, taking a breath as he was about to reveal one of the biggest secrets he'd ever carried, "to create a splinter unit of SHIELD, a sister agency."
Everyone present sat in shocked silence. "Wait," Cap began, "you're saying that there's another unit of SHIELD that possibly hasn't been infiltrated by Hydra?"
"Was." Fury responded, with a despondent look of finality. "This is where we come to our most recent guest here. She is the last of that sister agency known as the IMIA, the International Militaristic Intelligence Agency, or as they were more commonly known among themselves, the Black Falcons."
"What happened?" Natasha questioned.
"We thought that they had remained undetected by Hydra. The only contact SHIELD ever had with the IMIA since its creation is through a single phone number memorized by each director through which each leader can keep in contact should the need arise. This way there was no paper or electronic trail connecting the secretive organization with the more public SHIELD.
"Shortly after I was nearly killed by the Winter Soldier, I received a distress message from their director while still in recovery. The IMIA was being attacked. I had no remaining contacts I could trust to send in to assist them, the ones I did were busy trying to prevent Hydra from taking over anything else outside of SHIELD. They were slaughtered, down to every last agent. I saw the scene myself."
Fury paused for a moment, his fists clenched in anger and his brow furrowed. "They left their bodies to rot in the snow, deep in a European forest where the battle had taken place because not a single agent had ever, or ever would be, infiltrated or tainted by Hydra. I thought they were all gone until I noticed a body was missing, and I began to hope that somehow, someway Director Kona Donovan had survived."
The three Avengers looked sidelong at each other. "Director?" Stark wondered, "So, that's how you knew her?"
Fury nodded gravely. "They took her, barely alive, to experiment on. We won't know what they did to her until she wakes up."
Her head felt like it weighed a ton, although quite frankly it was a sensation she had become more accustomed to during her imprisonment. Yet… something felt different. She could hear soft voices about the room and the surface on which she laid was no longer a hard metal table but a bed covered in soft linens. She felt...stronger, healthier than she had been in a long time.
She cautiously opened her eyes to the soft white light, moving her arms ever so slightly only to find them restricted by metal cuffs.
That, she didn't like. Suddenly, her senses snapped into an alert awakening, the world around her sharpening to an unnatural clarity. She could feel the slight humidity of the air wet against her skin, hear the beating hearts of the doctors who attended her, see every hair and every pour from across the room.
A sudden rage coursed through her. Pain she could deal with, but chains were unacceptable.
Strength flooded her veins and with no effort the cuffs snapped as she ripped them from the bed frame. She swung her legs around the side as the nurses began to respond.
"Ma'am, you must stay calm," a young Asian woman said gently in an accent Kona knew distinctly to be Korean, South Korean to be exact. She may have listened to her had she not noticed a second nurse approaching her from the side with needle in hand. She snatched it before it made contact and with astonishing speed tossed it to the floor, the vial shattering upon impact. Kona ripped the IV's from her arm and sprinted towards the door, shoving past several more nurses in her path. She didn't want to hurt them but with no clue as to who they were working for that didn't mean she could trust them either.
With surprising force, the door burst open into a hallway of very confused workers. Security guards in dark uniforms came rushing around the corner in a great hurry. Instinct pumped adrenaline into her veins and she sprinted in the opposite direction, with no idea of where she was going.
It was a strange feeling. Her body felt weak from such a long period of disuse and yet her limbs were flooded with a strength she knew she hadn't possessed before. She could hear the pounding of boots behind her as she raced down the corridor in bare feet. The building had a very modern design and she would remember later taking note of the architecture similar to Avengers Tower. But if they truly meant to keep anyone captive in this place they had utterly failed, for whoever had designed it created a building so full of windows and natural light that Kona quickly calculated the fastest exit.
Another group of guards rounded the corner in front of her and Kona had to make some last minute adjustments to her escape plan. She was not going to be caught again. She could taste freedom for the first time in nearly a year and no one was going to keep it from her. Turning on a dime, she crashed straight through a glass door and onto an open balcony, deftly nicking a handgun from a flustered soldier without even a pause in her step. Vaulting over the balcony, she fell ten feet before landing nimbly with a grace that only comes from years of practice, although the gravel didn't feel very comfortable against bare feet.
Before her lay an open lawn carefully manicured up until the line of trees 500 meters to the north. If she could just make that sprint she'd be able to lose them once she made the forest. Willing her muscles to respond, she propelled herself forward with a speed she hadn't known she'd had. 100 meters, 200, 300, the end was in sight.
Suddenly with puff of jet smoke, a metal winged figure landed in her path with two handguns pointed directly at her. Yet to his surprise, she used her already built momentum to vault off of his shoulder and over his head before he could think twice about grabbing her. But just as freedom was in sight, a figure who just matched her speed barrelled towards her from the side and knocked the wind out of her lungs as he rammed her into the ground.
The world spun before her with spots of black as she threatened to lose consciousness while at the same time trying desperately to get her breath back. With a great gasp, her lungs suddenly decided to cooperate and she rolled onto her knees coughing fiercely. Her adrenaline drained, she could feel her limbs beginning to shake as the months of confinement caught up with her.
"We...don't want to hurt you," a strangely familiar voice said, nearly as out of breath as she was. Kona turned to see who had caught her and found herself staring fiercely into the eyes of none other that Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America.
As hard as she tried to appear calloused, a bout of coughing shook her body and she became suddenly aware of the many injuries she sustained, though not from her flight. She wore white pants, much like hospital scrubs, and a white tank top for her arms were nearly covered in bandages. She could feel the sting of several deep cuts and hoped she hadn't popped the stitches.
"Well you haven't lost your fire now have you," she heard a deep voice rumble and looked up to see one rather familiar face.
"Nicholas J. Fury," she panted, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I should've known."
Captain America bent down and offered a hand to help her up, which she accepted after a pause of hesitation. He may be a famous hero but he did just run her over. His icy blue eyes rested steadily on her for a moment as though trying to decide what to make of her before turning his attention to Fury, masking whatever thoughts he harbored like the hardened soldier he was.
Kona tried to keep her strength but her exhaustion was beginning to catch up with her and her knees started to wobble. Fury stepped forward to support her underneath her arm before she lost her balance completely.
"Girl, has it really been so long since you had help that you don't know how to recognize it?"
Kona looked at him with an eyebrow raised and handed him the gun she had taken. "Can you blame me for being cautious? I had no way of knowing you weren't Hydra." She tried to take a step forward before halting as the world spun before her. She really shouldn't have run so hard. Steve Rogers quickly stepped forward to put her other arm around his own shoulders. Normally Kona would have protested at the amount of help they were providing, but with her sudden bouts of vertigo she didn't exactly have much of a choice.
"Let's get...her back to the…medical bay…" she faintly heard Fury say before she once again lost consciousness.