A/N some slight rewording but the next chapter should be up soon.
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When the Avengers arrive back they had only a small hard drive with a message in what looks like a made up language and a few images of the Avengers team and a few S.H.I.E.L.D agents.
Barnes was clearly in a bad mood but he always was after a Hydra raid.
He paces behind Rogers and Carly in one of the R&D labs after all injuries had been assessed and healed and FRIDAY is working on breaking into the files and looking at decoding the message. Stark is busy showing the group what they had found so far, mainly correspondents, he thinks, but is still working it out when Carly snorts and says over her shoulder to the stalking Soldier.
"You've really pissed them off, Sarge' " before she could finish the sentence, he is stood at her shoulder, a dark mass towering over her smaller frame but she barley looks like she acknowledges his movements.
"You can read this?" He growls, the earlier playful attitude a shadowy memory. She nods, as she saw that the others had turn to her, surprised.
"It's mainly, the Hydra run countries. Russian, German, Austrian, and …Gaelic? I think, I'm a little rusty. "
"Miss Frost is correct, sir" FRIDAY says
"What does it say?" The Soldiers breath was hot on Carly's neck. Personal space was something the pair had yet to acknowledge.
Her eyes skim the text, pausing on words she struggles with. It had been a long time since she had last read the jumbled up languages.
"They are mad at you, the Avengers, SHIELD…. There is going to be a shipment of weapons delivered and payment will be needed. They want the Sarge back….something about another asset, SHIELD training, if the new asset will need to…" she pauses and gulps, eyes shifting to the hot dark mass at her shoulder then at Rogers with a pleaded look. Whatever she read would cause a reaction from the man beside her. Rogers looks curiously at them but ready to step in if Barnes became violent.
"What?!" The Soldier snarls. He has no time for patience. The woman is lucky he classes her as friend instead of foe.
"Be rehabilitate day Use-using the chair." The Hydra made soldier snarls again, sounding like an angry tiger and turn away from her, the violence of his moves making Carly flinch. Rogers moves between the two as the Soldier smashes one of the glass panel Walls by the doorway, before stomping away from them down the hall.
"I should really double the amount I pay my cleaners" Stark mutters looking at the mess, trying not to show how the Soldier could frighten him so easily.
"They're planning some smaller raids or activities, the purchase of something called Nightmare Gas and its results. They don't want SHIELD suspecting anything while they bring the newer asset in line and/or rehabilitate the previous one." Carly continues and finishes quickly, looking pale. The Winter Soldier was a valuable weapon and Hydra wasn't going to let him go without a fight.
"you know of the chair?" Natasha asked curiously from her corner, wondering how much Barnes has told her. She had read reports about the uses of it and the trauma it causes in the brain. Barnes had been most tight lipped about the process, which she could under stand.
"Everyone, who has dealt with Hydra knows of it" Natasha wasn't the only one to pick up on the slightest hint of tension and fear in the girl's eyes. Just how much of Hydra did this young woman know?
"does it say who it's between?" Barton asks watching the woman and the doorway for an angry Winter Soldier, in case he comes back.
"Some sleeper agents here at SHIELD and the leaders of Hydra's in the European branch"
"Europe Branch?" Banner echoes, wondering if they even damaged the surface any of Hydra's force. However they motto was "cut off one head and more will raise" or something like that. He silently wonders again why he came back to this and the stress and frustration.
Stark had snapped to his computer screen setting up a programme to filter any suspects from the SHIELD agents in the tower. He didn't like how they had gotten in his tower and wanted them out as fast as possible.
"Frost!" Stark, Banner, Rogers and Carly flinch at the yell from down the hall.
The Soldier was clearly very unhappy. The remaining two spies watch the door carefully, shifting their bodies to intercept anything charging at it. Both had seen carnage left by the Soldier and neither wanted a repeat.
Carly gulps, he only ever calls her by her last name when on a dangerous mission and shits going down or when he is royally pissed off.
Carly clearly waited too long to move, looking between the door and the message on the screen FRIDAY was translating, knowing her time was going to be up soon she scanned the message again. There was no names but unless HYDRA had a major reshuffle of managerial staff Carly knew exactly who the message was going to in Europe.
"now!" The snarl came again and she scurries to the door. Best to stop him charging into the darkness of his mind anymore, then stand and ignore him long enough for him to get lost in it, she thought.
Rogers grab her wrist to stop her, she froze and looks back at him like he was crazy.
Barton has also move towards the door, blocking her path. He doesn't like people getting hurt if he can stop it and the Soldier was highly unpredictable with violence.
"wait," Rogers calls, scared for whatever or whoever she might face out in the hallway.
"If I wait he'll come looking, and whatever comes will not be your friend." Carly was trained by both the Winter Soldier, James Barnes and the mixture of both that he was now. Both had teach her valuables lessons.
"But he's not- he's dangerous, he's not thinking straight.-" the others knew how bloody violent the man in the other room was, some had suffered first and second hand.
"I know. I can handle him." Rogers and the others gave her a look to say they didn't believe her, " it's what he trained me for" which was true. Trained to fight, trained to protect. She was no where near as strong as Barnes but she was quicker, landing them on an more even playing field.
Carly twists out of Roger's grip, slips past Barton and disappears down the hall before anyone could stop her.
"Get the cameras up" Rogers orders Stark but Stark had already put them up to see the Soldier pacing angrily down the hall in one of the private offices, waiting for Carly to enter the room.
A dangerous beast waiting for pray.
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As Carly enters the darker room off to the side of the bright hall way slowly, the door click shut behind her and she is suddenly slammed against the wall with an arm across her neck. The shadow before her towers and crowds her easily, this was not the calmer James Barnes but the Soldier, full of hate and frustration. Carly knows the only reason he hasn't started breaking bones is because in some dark corner of his shattered mind he knows she is not a threat to him. Yet.
"Now telltale truth, what do you know." The soldier hisses quietly a breath away from her face, the mans cold blue/grey eyes twisted in anger and distrust.
"which part?" She gulped feeling the arm push against her throat.
The Soldier growled.
This is no time to be smart, Carly thinks to herself.
"The message is between a Hydra agent within this building or who has accent to the SHIELD mainframe and a Ms Emma Zabin, leader or rather co-leader of the European branch of Hydra. " Barnes vaguely recognised the name of the woman. The news that Hydra was already here was unpleasant and he tighten the fist on her neck and tried to calm himself, feeling the almost stead beat beneath his palm. "Most of the rest is true," she adds reluctantly "only she speaks of a daughter, who has been trained by you"she paused watching his reaction " and will become the next Asset, whether she will willing or will need to be wiped to complete the transaction." She try's to gulp "it's gets rather detailed about the ways they plan to upgrade her."
He relaxed his grip to think about who he had trained. Hundreds of faces pass his mind each one making him more and more angry. He paused looking at Carly's shadowy face and remembered the argument they had almost a year ago when they were pushing each other's limits hoping then other who break first. She had mention that her family had links to Hydra, a main reason for Fury's hatred and distrust of her. Another reason to place her with the Soldier. They could be linked together if things went south.
"What is your moms maiden name?" He asked her removing himself from her and taking a step back already knowing the answer but dreading the confirmation, and what it would mean.
Carly gave him a soft sad smile as she pushed herself closer to the wall, some how knowing the reaction from him would be one of violences but also n ending the wall to support her.
"Zabin." Bucky's mind became a blank page of rage. Hydra would never end and never leave him alone, and Carly, his delicate tough little bird, would become just another puppet for them, with her own mother pulling the strings. Parents were supposed to protect their children not offer them up to the slaughter and wipe the blood of the innocent on their hands.
Carly watches the Soldier break the room, barely noticing the cupboard that had fallen over the door way, blocking the opening.
She moved to stand in the middle of the room silently. Away from anything to be slammed into of for anything to be accidentally thrown at her.
The Sarge' had once told her in the early days when there trust was still new, that if he was ever in these moods to not draw attention to herself. A rule she only broke once to stop two SHIELD agents from becoming his targets. That was the only time he intentionally broke her bones, and the others in SHIELD learnt to stay clear of him completely.
She clenched her eyes shut at the suddenly dry burn that normally precedent tear, she let her head dip as she tried to calm her breathing as the knowledge of what she had read sank in.
She had seen the chair work. Many years ago and the nightmares of it still made her wake in a cold sweat, and her own mother was offering her up to it. The woman had always said she was a inconvenience. Something she never wanted, but her dear father had. Carly's father had not been Hydra. All he wanted was to help others, he had become chief of police in his later days before he died, never knowing that his wife was head of a criminal organisation.
Carly became aware of a dangerous silence in the room. Something that you did not want to happen when the Soldier was concern. She opened her eyes and saw two black boots and hot, harsh breath on her hair. The frighten child like motion in her mind said either run or to let him kill her, it would be better then letting Hydra take her. She didn't have the energy to fight him. Not now. But she waited, on edge as she knew he would only hate himself afterwards. She could let him, she needed to protect him. The lessons he had drilled into her about protecting Rogers and the others extended to him whether he liked it or not.
She waited for a blow or a push but it never came.
His human hand settled on the back of her head then slowly trailed down her neck and around her shoulder. He stepped forward letting her head rest against his broad chest, still with combat gear attached. His cool metal fingers reaching up to stroke the gap between shirt and hair on her neck. Carly reminds still, but she couldn't stop herself leaning ever so slightly into him.
A few moments later and Carly felt his head drop onto hers.
"You're my mission now. I won't let them have you." He muttered against her soft hair. Carly wanted to believe him, she really really did but she had grown up on the edge of Hydra and see it work. She had the marks Hydra leave burned into her. She let out a hitch of breath, pushing her smaller body into his battle harden one, letting her arms close around his chest.
The door bang against the fallen cupboard, sounding like a shot gun, but it had been doing it a while before Steve, Natasha and Tony burst through the door. Steve looked hard at the pair, so many emotions flickering though his eye it was hard to pick one.
FRIDAY had finished translating the text and the Avengers had watched the confrontation in the room. Barton was already in the air vents collecting a tranquilliser to knock Barns out if needed. Although he was quiet happy to shoot him in the leg.
"I'll inform Fury," Natasha's eyes flickered between the pair, resting a second more on Carly
"I'v got FRIDAY running through everyone." Tony growled watching Barnes and Carly like they are ticking time bombs that was seconds from exploding. The main people that FRIDAY had selected from the Avengers team with possible links to Hydra where Barnes and Carly. Barnes brain was like broken glass when dealing with Hydra but Carly had never spoken about her link to them. "Looks like you have some explaining to do, Frost." This was the first time Stark had ever used her name. Carly resided herself to having to inform the Avengers of her mother, of memories she had pushed back wanting them to disappear. She settled herself in for a long night.
