Chapter Three

"Name?" Steve asked.

"You already know my name."

"It's for the record." Steve held up an old fashion tape recorder and smiled. Natasha said that he had watched too many cop shows but what else was he supposed to do at the time? Fury wasn't exactly letting him waltz around the city when he first woke up.

Viktoriya sighed and propped her feet onto the table in front of her. "Viktoriya Yeshevsky." After their "little talk" back in Washington, Steve and the others had brought her back to Stark Industries. They now sat in one of Stark's many offices.

Steve opened a manila folder and flipped through the papers inside. "Looks like you were born in Oregon and in and out of foster care until you turned thirteen. Then you disappeared off the map for five years until you were recruited by SHIELD. What did you do those years?"

"Well, I was always good with computers. When I was eight, I hacked into my schools grading system and bumped up my math grade a few letters. When I was twelve, I hacked into my social worker's computer and sent my brother and I to the same home. Before that time they had always rented us out separately."

"Rented? They rent children?" Steve's eyes widened. Sure times had changed but renting children?

"The families might as well have rented us. As foster kids we were given to families who took care of us until we could be adopted. They were given the funds to buy us food and clothes but most of the time they used it to buy booze and drugs. Now days they have a way to check up on the families but back then, well things were kind of a mess. You'd have a home for a few months and then the family would realize that you were taking more money than you giving and back into the system you went."

"That's awful."

"Yea, but things started to look up. I got caught hacking into the foster care's system and at first I was terrified about what they would do to me. But then an adoption request came in, one that specifically asked for me. I was so excited to meet the family. I just knew it was going to be a loving father and mother with a big, cuddly golden-colored dog." Viktoriya chuckled and rubbed her forehead."But it was just a man. An old man, with grey hair and more wrinkles than I could count. He had been one of the best robbers of his time and along the way he picked up computer hacking. He taught me everything I know and all of a sudden I was working for the Russians, the Italians, the CIA, FBI, really anyone who could pay me. Then the old man died, I was recruited, and now here I am."

Steve couldn't help but notice the fond smile that played across her full lips. "This file still classifies you as an agent of Hydra. You defected, why?"

Viktoriya's smile disappeared and her eyes turned cold. "Hydra offered me a more interesting, higher paying job. And frankly, Hydra's policies make a hell of a lot more sense than SHIELD's."

Steve frowned; he got the faint sense that she wasn't telling the entire truth. "And what was this more 'interesting' job?"

"They told me I was in charge of the Sergeant's prosthetic. I was really more of an emergency button, though."

"Emergency button? I thought you were his psychiatrist."

Viktoriya snorted. "So that's what they called it. The team who worked on Barnes found out early on that when you erase a person's entire memory, they become erratic and uncontrollable. No one was able to get close to Barnes without sedating him beforehand. You see, humans need some sort of constant in their lives, something they can count on. The team decided that if they gave Barnes a constant he would be more controllable."

"You became the constant."

She nodded. "I was the first he saw when he woke up and the last before he went into the cryo tubes. The first couple rounds showed no improvement. He didn't recognize me any better than any of the other scientists. But when he woke up the third time, while he didn't know me by name, he definitely recognized me. As time went on, I became something he could rely on and when things got out of hand I was there to calm the situation down."

A glimmer of hope rose in Steve's chest. If he could remember a stranger, Bucky would be able to remember his childhood friend. He just had too!

"Can you help us catch him?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't know where to start looking let alone find—" Viktoriya stopped suddenly and sat up straight in her chair.

"What's the matter?"

"The tracking device! Why didn't I think of it earlier?"

"What? A tracking device?"

"They had me put a tracking device into Barnes' arm so that they could find him in case he decided to run off after a mission."

"You can find him, with this device?"

"I'm pretty sure I can. I just need to find a way to communicate with it. If we can find a computer connected to Hydra's mainframe I should be able to find its signal."

"You'll need an Agent's computer." Steve pondered.

"It's gonna have to be a pretty high ranking agent. Not just anyone gets access to Hydra's secrets. The only place an agent like that exists is Hydra's center of operations and there is no way either of us is getting in there."

"What about the President? His computer was confiscated when he was arrested. And where do they keep federally confiscated items?"

Viktoriya grinned. "FBI headquarters, a building we can get into."


"What's the plan Cap?" The dark-skinned soldier, "Sam" Steve had called him, asked. The two men and Viktoriya stood in front of the FBI building. The sun had set long before and now they stood under the twinkling stars.

"We'll distract the guards and get Viktoriya into their office. She will turn off the cameras and get us into the evidence room. We'll grab the computer and be out of here before the fat lady sings."

Sam and Viktoriya turned to the Captain, smiles etched into their faces.

"What did you say?" Viktoriya asked, struggling to hide her smile.

"The others are always complaining that I need to 'modernize' my speech and that it is 'old-fashioned', so I went home and looked up some hip things to say. 'Before the fat lady sings' was one of the milder ways to word something, although I still don't think it's very polite to call a lady fat." Steve frowned, obviously conflicted.

"Right," Sam's voice wavered as Viktoriya quietly snickered behind him, "we're not going to have the cover of nightfall for much longer, and so we should probably get started."

The pair managed to suppress their giggles as Viktoriya jimmied open the front doors. The door made a clicking sound and Viktoriya smiled.

"Ready boys?" She placed a hand on the door handle and braced herself to push it open.

"Wait!" Sam whispered. "What about alarms?"

"Viktoriya had me hide a disrupter in one of the plants this morning." Steve answered.

"It will disrupt the signal between the alarm's trigger and the device that makes the noise. The trigger will go off but it won't be able to make a connection with the device and there will be no noise." Viktoriya explained matter-of-factly. "It won't last forever, though, so we are going to have to be quick about getting into the security office. I can turn it off completely from there."

Sam sucked in a breath. "We've got a time limit, eh? Alrighty then—let's do this."

Viktoriya pushed open the door and raced into the building, the boys following closely behind her. She ran through the maze of hallways she had memorized the night before. It would have been nearly impossible to get such good blue-prints of such a secure building if you were anyone else, but Steve's team definitely had connections and for them it was pretty easy. Viktoriya turned a corner and nearly crashed into a security guard. She regained her composure before he did and was able to slip around guard.

"Hey—" he called after her before he was cut off by one of the boys.

Viktoriya raced on, with Sam and Steve clearing the way of security guards. She was so focused on their mission that she nearly passed the security station. She came to a sudden stop in front of the door. "Here!"

She twisted the handle. Locked, of course it was. She set about picking the lock, except there was no lock to pick.

"Damn it! It's a keypad!" She exclaimed, gesturing to the silver box attached to the wall beside the door.

"Watch out." Steve warned. She turned to look at the two men and saw Steve's foot raised into the air, aimed at her. She gasped and rolled out of the way just in time. Steve's foot collided with the door and it burst open in a cloud of wood slivers.

"Well, that works." Viktoriya shrugged and walked into the office. She steeled herself to fight any guards that may have been hanging around, but the office was strangely empty.

"They must have been the ones on patrol." Sam said.

Viktoriya nodded her head and sat down at the computer. Her fingers flew across the keyboard and a mixture of numbers and letters flashed across the screen.

"Evidence storage is in the basement. There are two doors that require some kind of keycard. I can open them from here but they only stay unlocked for about fifteen seconds. I'll watch you guys through the cameras and unlock them as you come to them."

Steve looked at Sam. "You ready?"

Sam nodded and the pair ran off into the hallway. Viktoriya followed their every movement through the cameras. James had had vague memories of a sickly child. Viktoriya had assumed it was a younger sibling or a friend, she was surprised to find out it was the masculine Captain America. As she watched him now, she could only imagine the pain Steve must have felt as he watched his friend die, both physically and mentally.

"First door?" Steve asked through the earpiece.

"Coming right up." Viktoriya punched in a few commands and the door popped open. It was almost unbearable to watch the Captain try so hard to bring his friend back. What was worse was the hope that lit up his face.

"Second door."

A few more commands and the second slid open. Viktoriya had been hopeful once. When her brother first got sick, she was positive she could cure him. At first all she needed was money. Hydra certainly would pay her enough. But then money wasn't enough and then she needed a miracle. Extremis became that miracle, but it had created nothing but a ticking time bomb within her and it mostly definitely didn't save her brother.

"We got it! We'll meet you back at Stark's." Steve exclaimed. And then the alarms went off. Red lights flashed and the blare of ringing filled Viktoriya's ears.

"Crap!" She slammed her hands against the buttons but nothing happened.

"What happened?" Steve yelled over the earpiece.

"They must have a manual emergency system! It's not connected to the computers so I can't turn it off, at least not from here!" She waited for a response but none came. "Steve? Steve! Can you hear me?"

"Your friends have been captured Viktoriya Yeshevsky." A voice filtered into the room. Viktoriya whirled towards the doorway and was met by the figure of a well dressed man. His smile was cruel and the symbol of Hydra was pinned to the collar of his jacket.

Viktoriya cautiously stood from her chair. "What do you want?"

"We want you—and your friends—to come with us." He stepped into the room and shut it behind him. "We want you to let us handle the capturing of the Winter Soldier."

"Why? So you can stick him back into the hell hole you had him in? So you can take every memory he's every made and make him a shell of a man?"

"That's a harsh way of putting it." The man stepped ever closer to Viktoriya and she stepped back. "We wish to contain him to protect the people."

"You wouldn't have to protect the people if you hadn't created the problem in the first place." She ran her hands over the gun in her back pocket and was startled by how cool it felt. Her hands became clammy and she felt the fear settle into her stomach like a rock.

The man laughed and Viktoriya's back hit the wall. He placed his hands onto the wall and leaned over her small frame. His left hand snaked around her backside and pulled her gun from her pocket. He made a clucking noise with his tongue and shook his head.

"You really should learn to use this much sooner than you do." He said pressing the gun into her stomach.

"I was afraid I'd ruin it." Viktoriya snarled back.

"Ruin it? Pray, do tell."

Viktoriya reached up a shaky hand and laid it on the man's cheek. The man's smirk disappeared and a look of confusion replaced it. Viktoriya gingerly stroked the man's cheek with her finger tips and suddenly placed her full palm onto his face. She felt the rock inside her gut melt into molten lava and the power flowed into her fingers.

The man screamed in agony and back away from Viktoriya's glowing hand. The skin on the left side of his face had bubbled up and torn away from the bone, the edges blacker than coal. He clutched his face protectively.

Viktoriya raced around him and had almost made it to the door when a hand wrapped around her ankle. She was sent flying to the ground.

"You bitch!" He screamed. He noticed the gun that had fallen from his hand and picked it up once more. He pressed the cool barrel into Viktoriya's forehead and she closed her eyes. She heard the bang of the gun and could smell the gunpowder, but strangely she was still alive. When she dared to open her eyes, she saw the Hydra agent lying on the floor, a hole in his mangled face.

Steve stood in the doorway, the gun still smoking in his hand. But it wasn't the agent he was focused on, it was Viktoriya. He looked at her with shock, his mouth hung ajar.

Viktoriya stood and picked up her gun. She slipped it back into her pants and pulled her shirt over it. She made her to the doorway but when she tried to slip around Steve, he didn't budge.

"Come on! We've got to get out of here." She exclaimed, exasperated. She knew what was coming next and frankly she wasn't in a mood to explain. She needed to get out of here before he could—

"How did you do that?"

Too late.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!