Chapter 4: Helping Hand
Washington DC, 2014
Amelia and Will meet up at an Internet cafe, dressed in shades and hats. It was needed incase they come into contact with Steve. Will sat down as he set up his personal laptop.
"Alright, so after we find out what's going on, what do we do next?" Will asked, Amelia played with the burner cell she had in her hands.
"We find Steve and tell him what's going on"
"That's it? Just like that? " the hacker asked, giving her a ridiculous look.
"Just like that," she simply replied, looking out towards the moving cars.
"Amelia, are you sure this is going to work?"
"Nope, but it's the best shot we have," Will sighed and started typing away. It took a while, seeing how he had to hack into every file in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database. After an hour, Amelia leaned her head back. Will had just finished looking though both political and military files, now he was looking into weaponry files. Just as the hacker was about to give up, he noticed a certain file that stuck out to him.
"Amelia," Will called, getting the other woman's attention, "Look at this," he said. Amelia stood up and leaned ocer his shoulder, as they read the name of the file.
"Project Insight? " the scientist asked, narrowing her eyes in confusion, "What's that?" Amelia asked, looking at Will.
"Well let's find out shall we?" Will sstretched his arms out and cracked his knuckles, before doing quick work of the file. While Will typed away, Amelia noticed a few faces lurking around the cafe. She noticed that they were looking in both her and Will's direction.
"Will..." she muttered, getting his attention. When the hacker looked up at her, she slightly motioned her head to the people that were looking at them, "We've got some company"
Amelia woke, looking at the ceiling above her. It wasn't the ceiling from her room. It was gray and dull. Quickly, she stood up and saw that she was in the holding cell. That was then she remembered that she had came here with Will to talk with Bucky. But seeing how Will was agitated, she pushed him out and engaged in a small conversation with Bucky. It wasn't much, but it was progress. Amelia figured she feel asleep.
"Oh, good. You're awake," she turned and saw Will standing by the door.
"Not sorry, if that's what you want to hear," she said. Will rolled her eyes and used one hand to pick her up.
"Sure, come along. Kay called us to help her with a case," Will said, walking out towards the door.
"Why does Kay need help from a scientist and hacker?" Amelia asked.
"Ah, I'll have you know that I am also a certified agent, I'm not just a hacker you know," Amelia looked at him skeptically.
"I have yet to see that..." she replied, and swiftly wakked out of the cell, shuting the doors, quietly as Bucky was still asleep. Amelia changed out of her pajamas, and into more suitable clothing, though she was worried about leaving Bucky alone. Will drove them to a hotel, it wasn't big and fancy nor was it rundown and worn out, just a simple standard hotel. They both entered the elevator to the 7th floor. They arrived in front of an apartment door. Will proceed to knock on the door, which opened to reveal Kayla Hendricks, a former cop that currently works with S.H.I.E.L.D. She was a tall statured woman with long wavey brown hair and eyes.
"Glad you two came," she said, as she open the door wider so they could enter.
"Uh. Yeah, we got you message. What's wrong?" Amelia asked the former cop.
"Former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have been dropping dead all over New York City," the two Brits exchanged each other looks, then gazed back at Kayla.
"Are you sure? This isn't some twisted joke now is it?" Will asked, Kayla shook her head.
"No, they were definitely S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, we had suillvances on them for a while now"
"Suillvances? I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. disbanded after their files were made public on the Internet?" Amelia said, narrowing her eyes.
"They did, but Fury told me, Clint, Giselle, Janice, and Natasha to keep an eye on them, just incase they decided to turn" at this Amelia rolled her eyes. Of course Fury would ask the super spies to do the suillvancing. Typical.
"Okay, next question. Why us?" Will asked, "Why do you need out help?"
"We think HYDRA is involved, and knowing their history, we think that they hired an assassin to take them out"
"How do you know?"
"I got my old buddies at Ballistic to check out the bullet that shot them, and they were all a matching brand. They just couldn't get any prints off it, like it was swiped down clean," Kayla explained.
"And knowing some assassins of our own, that's the basic rules in assassination and spying, never leave any prints," Amelia analyzed, "Seems like a dead one if you ask me, but everybody makes mistakes, even assassins"
"Not unless, they're a robot," Will inquired.
"Oh, we haven't reached that far in technology yet, Will," Amelia then llooked back at Kayla, "So how exactly are we going to find this assassin?"
"We find out where he shot them, and look for any clues or signatures," Kayla said.
"Signatures?" Will asked.
"You know signatures, every assassin or spy has their own method of disposal, for example Clint uses arrows right," Amelia stared, explaining to the hacker, "He prefers bows and arrows instad of a simple gun, it's his signature, his own unique way of disposal"
"Okay, I think I understand"
"Okay, good. Cause I had no idea what I was talking about," the scientist said, causing the hacker and cop to stare at her wide eyed, "Kidding, kidding! " she said, noticing their looks, "So the bullets, were they shot close range or long distance?" Amelia asked. Kayla froze and was a bit hesitant to answer. The two saw this, as her hand was shaking slightly.
"Long distance," it didn't take them long to figure out why she was shaking. It was a sniper. Amelia and Will had nervous looks etched across their faces, they remembered how traumatic it was for Kayla. Almost most dying that is.
"Kay, are you okay?" Will asked, as she was still shaking. Kayla snapped out of her trance and looked at them.
"Yeah. Fine, fine," she nodded, though the two still had their doubts, but they shrugged it off. Suddenly, Kayla's phone rang, breaking the tension in the air. She answered her phone nodding, before she hung up, "Just got a hit on where the assassin might have shot the agents"
At an old abandoned building, Amelia, Kayla, and Will cautiously walked into the dusty room. There were tables scattered all over the place.
"Look for anything that seems to stick out," Kayla said, looking into one of the shelves.
"Like what? For instance?" Wil asked, as he searched under the table. Amelia then walked nexted to a window still. Looking at the still, she saw a colorful piece of paper covered by other things. After moving the other things, she saw that it was a colorful paper doll.
"Think I found something," Amelia called out picking up the doll as the others to stop what they were doing and walk up to when the scientist was.
"Paperdoll? That's a first," Will mused, seeing the doll in Amelia's hand.
"Pretty sure this is a signature," Amelia said, looking up at them.
"That or maybe it was left by the neighboring kids," Kayla inquired, Will shrugged, somewhat agreeing with her, though Amelia had a look that said otherwise. Kayla rolled her eyes and sighed, looking oit the window as the sun started to set, "Okay, it's getting late, we can continue this tomorrow," she said as the three retired for the day.
Amelia returned back to her home and sat at her desk, analyzing the papaerdoll. There was something about the colors and pictures on the doll. It was frustrating her, if the doll wasn't cut out, she might have figured out what it meant. She didn't know why she was doing this, maybe that HYDRA was still out at large was driving her. She sat there for a bit, then sighed.
Amelia stood up and walked out of her lab, with the files of the agents' deaths and the paperdoll. When she exited the lab, she went inside the elevator. She decided to check on Bucky, since had been gone for a while. Amelia got off the elevator and walked down the hall, before opening the door. There she saw Bucky looking up the ceiling as he laid on his back.
"Didn't expect to see you up this late," she said, looking down her watch it was three o'clock in the morning. She spent most of the night trying to figure out what the doll meant, but she wondered why Bucky was still up.
"Kinda hard to sleep normally in a place like this, doll," Bucky replied, sitting quirked an eyebrow at him, seeing how he didn't stayed quiet like usual.
"You talked!" she cried, gaping at him, but she noticed how it sounded and rephrased it, "I mean, you didn't stay quiet like usual, I mean, yes, we did have small talks, but you replied instantly this time!" Amelia felt vey accomplished at the moment, this was another step closer to helping him.
"I felt like I could trust you," he answered honestly, causing the scientist to look down shyly.
"That's nice to know," she replied with a smile, before yawning.
"You know sleep is important," Bucky said, noticing the dark ring forming under her eyes.
"Really? So why aren't you sleeping?" Amelia asked, Bucky shrugged.
"When you're stuck in here, sleep is the only thing you can do," he answered.
"I guess that's true," she agreed, "Must be be boring in here sometimes,"
"I deserved it though," he started, "I did a lot of terrible things to people,"
"It wasn't your fault, you were brainwashed, you had no idea what you were doing, you can't blame yourself for that," Amelia said, she saw the distress in his eyes and sighed. She placed the files on the table and walked up to the cell, unlocking the doors. Bucky stood up and looked at her, confused.
"What are doing?" he asked, scared that he might hurt her If she came to close to him.
"Do you really want to be a better person? And be honest with me, cause honesty is key in this whole rehabilitation process, I need to know in order to help," Amelia said, looking into his eyes. Bucky inhaled a dep breath before averting his eyes away from hers.
"I can't get help," he muttered.
"Yes you can, you just refuse to accept the fact that you're not a lost cause," the scientst scolded, "If you think that running away from all your problems will make then disappear, then you're wrong"
"How do you know? How do you know about any of this?"
"Because I just do," she answered, " When you run, it feels like it will never end," she started, looking down at the ground, "But no matter what, no matter how hard you try to run, you can't run forever," Bucky didn't answer for a while, as he colleected his thoughts.
"You really think I can get help?" Bucky asked, eyeing the ground.
"Absolutely, and it's not just me, Steve as well, he believes that his best friend is still in there," she didn't know if Bucky completely remembered everything, just most of the important fragments, like Steve, the Howling Commandos, and the fall.
"The punk..." Bucky said, smirking a little. He sighed and looked up at her again, "So what do I do?"
"Well for starters, talking could help, is there anything you remember that you want to talk about?" Bucky nodded.
"I remember a girl named Olivia...and she looked exactly like you"
Bucky! You are giving me too many feels! But yay, Amelia made a break though in Bucky's rehab, I felt like they should start getting some form of a relationship. The next chapter will probably be mostly about Bucky and Olivia and how Amelia is related, along with what happened to her and Will during the movie, and some small parts on their investigation on the dead agents. And for those of you who review the last chapter, yes the Doctor Who bit were intentional. Hope you enjoy!