Natasha doesn't seem to like waking up to find The Winter Soldier standing at Steve's door in the middle of the night, until she sees the captain walk up beside him. She knows that Bucky is no longer a threat, but he'd shot her twice in the past and she doesn't feel much like putting her guard down around him, despite Steve's enthusiasm about the soldier's rehabilitation. Natasha hastily fastens the robe that hangs around her half naked form; she had woken up a few hours ago to the phone ringing and Steve slipping out of bed, saying as she laid half-awake that he was going to help Bucky with something.
"I need to speak to Fury," Bucky states as calmly as possible. Natasha looks to Steve.
"Mikelle is missing. We think she was abducted."
"What time is it?" Natasha asks, sleepily, wiping her eye as she saunters back into Steve's living room.
"Natasha—"
"Alright—okay. I'm going to call Nick right now," she reassures, eying Bucky who stares at a file in his hands, sitting on the sofa. He looks more worried than threatening, and she slowly begins to feel sorry for the man.
"What is this?" Bucky asks, louder than is necessary as Fury steps through the door, closing it behind himself. He watches the director's good eye grow large as the soldier thrusts the bottle Dr. Banner had given him into his face.
"What was Mikelle doing with it? I had to take her to the hospital a few days ago because she'd been having seizures."
"Where is agent Hass now?" Fury asks.
Bucky throws the bottle down at the director's feet, where it smashes open on the hardwood floor. His metal fingers securely grip Fury's windpipe.
"If she dies because of you—!"
"Hey!" Steve shouts, and he separates the two, just as Fury pulls a gun and presses it against Bucky's forehead.
"That's enough. Bucky—calm down. You're not going to find her by hurting Nick."
"Keep that goddamn hand off of me," Fury spits, distancing himself several feet, slowly pocketing the gun. Bucky sighs, trembling, Steve and Natasha standing defensively between the two of them.
"Alright, everybody take a chill pill," Natasha declares, "Okay? …When was the last time you saw her, James?"
"This morning. She said she was going to run some errands—didn't tell me where she was going."
"The message, on the machine. She was supposed to go see a doctor. It could have been the same hospital you took her to. Why don't we start there, retrace her steps?" Steve suggests.
"Sounds like a start," Fury explains, glancing around Steve to make eye contact with Bucky, who's still grimacing angrily, his metal fist clenched. His eyes are watery, however, creating a sympathetic atmosphere amongst the trio in his presence.
"What was she doing with this?" Bucky asks again, pointing to the shattered bottle on the floor.
"She still hasn't told you?" Nick asks, closing his eyes slowly, praying that Mikelle is at the very least alive, wherever she is.
"Tell me what?" Bucky asks desperately, advancing a step. Steve places a firm hand on his shoulder.
"I'm fine," he says reassuringly. Fury steps around Natasha to meet face to face with Bucky.
"She ever tell you about her telekinesis? She was involved in some research with S.H.I.E.L.D., the goal of which was to harness the brain's fullest capacity. It can be a very potent weapon if unlocked further than most of us are able to utilize it. The serum was developed by Banner, thought it could help Hass regain control of it."
Bucky glances to the right knowingly, recalling how she'd thrown him up against the wall, how tightly she'd held him without even touching him. He'd never felt a force quite like that before. Nick sighs remorsefully.
"The seizures…must've been a side effect. I told her no more than two cc's a day," he mutters, looking Bucky in the eyes.
"Well, the serum worked. She used that power on me the other week. So I guess she'd been having seizures for longer than I realized…she was hiding all of this from me," he explains.
"Let's start at that hospital then. If she was abducted, I can almost guarantee it would have been because of the phenomenon they might have observed in her brain. Hass's brain is not like your average Jane Doe's," Fury explains. Natasha disappears to get ready and a flicker of hope fills Bucky's heart.
"I'm sorry," he says lowly, offering his human hand to Fury. Nick hesitates before shaking it.
"Don't worry about it. You know, she wouldn't tell me why she wanted that telekinesis so badly. Something tells me she just wanted to feel safe. After what happened with S.H.I.E.L.D., I can't blame her."
Bucky's brows clench. She didn't feel safe with him? Even when she knew what he was capable of?
"Mikelle is with child, Nick," Steve chimes in, bringing Bucky back to earth, "If we don't find her, it'll mean more trouble for Bucky."
Nobody wanted to deal with that, and Bucky knew it.
"They'll do much worse than kill her," Bucky adds numbly, turning his bionic palm to face him. Already, he can't wait to use it to crush the life out of whoever is to be held responsible.
Steve still hasn't said anything as he hurries down the street, stopping at a red light just before the hospital's entrance.
"Fury and Romanoff should already be in with the distraction while we look for clues…What is it, Steve?"
Steve shakes his head.
"Look, I'm not an idiot. You're not really up for this, are you?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Bucky. I'm always with you, and I always will be. Until the very end."
"But you're thinking something. I can see it on your face."
"You barely know this woman, Bucky. And you already went and got her pregnant? I just think that's kind of…fast. And you said she used that telekinesis on you. Why? How do you know she's not a threat to you?" Steve steps on the gas, his eyes wide for a moment. Bucky grasps Steve's arm with his metal hand.
"I barely know you," he says, and as Steve pulls into the car park, visibly hurt for a moment, he pauses to stare into Bucky's eyes.
"I don't remember half of the things you tell me about from before we became all of this. Who are you to tell me I don't even know her? She makes me…feel, Steve. Isn't that enough? And she threw me up against a wall—that's all. She didn't want me to call an ambulance when I found her having a seizure on the floor. She wouldn't hurt me on purpose."
They're both silent as Steve pulls into a space.
"What if our places were switched and it was Natasha?" Bucky asks as Steve pulls the keys out of the ignition. Steve stares him in the face.
"I didn't mean it like that, Bucky—"
"Sure, you didn't."
Steve's uneasiness isn't assuaged as he watches the panicked way that Bucky stalks towards the elevator. He can't take the silence as they wait, Bucky unable to stand still, practically pulling the elevator doors open when they arrive on the third floor of the hospital, and Bucky makes a b-line for the room Mikelle had stayed in.
"If she means that much to you, then I care about her, too. I'll do anything I can to help." Steve admits quietly as Bucky pauses to wait by the door, which is open a crack. Bucky's head turns three-quarters of the way in Steve's direction, and the captain knows that his apology made it through.
"I didn't mean what I said," Bucky whispers, "Even if I don't remember a lot, I do know you."
And as no one appears to be on the other side of the door, Bucky pushes it open and flicks on the light switch. There's nothing there, not to his surprise, and it doesn't make him feel any less panicked. Captain's phone vibrates.
"Storage room, fifth floor. Natasha found Mikelle's doctor."
Bucky is the first one out of the room and when he finds that there are nurses in the hall, rushing Fury, who is pretending to have horrible chest pains, past on a gurney, he wipes the fear off his face and walks at a normal pace, Steve not far behind him. They walk to the stairwell. They slip into the room in which Natasha is holding a gun to the head of the bald man whose face Bucky remembers from fabricating the rugby lie about Mikelle's head trauma. The first thing the soldier does is kick the man squarely in the chest. The hostage falls back, smiling, yet coughing in discomfort, his hands cuffed behind his back.
"You won't find her now," he grumbles, lying on his side, "She has already been taken."
Bucky pulls Mikelle's switchblade out of his pocket; he had picked it up from the drawer he'd pulled out of the bureau earlier. Suddenly he wonders why she hadn't taken it to keep on her person. It might have come in handy. As Bucky leans down to point the blade at the eyeball of the man who's smiling triumphantly at him, Steve pulls him back.
"We need to get him out of here to question him. Something tells me he's not going to just tell us."
"Easy," Natasha shrugs. She shocks the man unconscious. It proves rather easy to sneak the man out of the hospital on a gurney in the white coats the trio finds in the storage room. Once the hostage is in the back seat of the car, Buck turns around to hold a gun on him, in the event that he would wake up.
When Mikelle comes to, she's quickly aware of how drugged she is, and how restrained. She can't even turn her head to look at anything. A woman's voice meets her ears.
"I wouldn't even think about trying to use that little trick of yours again…"
As her eyes open, Mikelle can finally make sense of the live screen playing before her very eyes, her best and closest friend, Samantha, pushing her little girl down a slide. They are far away, Mikelle knows, but someone is watching the mother and daughter. Mikelle had met the child some months ago, shortly before the demise of S.H.I.E.L.D.. She had even babysat for Sam when she'd go out on dates, in the attempts to meet her Mr. Right, someone that could live up to a father figure for the little girl.
"Don't think she's the only one we've got our eyes on. One wrong move, Mikelle, and they'll never know what hit them."
The woman talking appears shortly in front of Mikelle. She looks to be in her fifties or sixties, with translucent gray eyes that are almost terrifying to look at. Mikelle is strapped to some sort of table, and slowly, it lifts her to an almost standing position.
"You don't have to hurt people…what do you want with me?" she asks.
"It's simple, really. You belong to Hydra. You know now that you were a project, yes?"
As the woman speaking circles Mikelle, she can only follow her with her eyes, her head locked in place.
"We meant to instill you within S.H.I.E.L.D., to take it down. Your parents were supposed to ensure that, but they couldn't even convince you to step away from S.H.I.E.L.D. You refused. They failed. But now you are home."
"Where is this home?"
"And you are going to do our bidding, as you were meant to," the woman continues, ignoring Mikelle's query.
"Your first mission," starts the silver-haired lady, walking out of sight to mess with something behind Mikelle, out of her line of sight.
"Is The Winter Soldier. He betrayed us…pity. Your love story could have ended well, if he had simply completed his mission and brought you back to us. But now he must be terminated. He has been compromised and can no longer be utilized."
Mikelle knows exactly what this woman is suggesting, and her eyes begin to water.
"Please…I'm not on anyone's side. Just leave them alone—they have nothing to do with this." Mikelle stares at Samantha on the screen, and knows well that she still believes Mikelle had truly died months ago.
"They are leverage," the woman snaps, readjusting her glasses, and Mikelle notices the device she's holding, which looks like some sort of remote control. She looks to the screen again to find that Samantha is walking to her car with her daughter, the overhead view one as if a sniper were watching from a building nearby.
"Your brain capacity is beyond that of any Hydra agent, Mikelle. You are human, but you are a perfect human. We modified you that way."
She can finally tell that she is in a lab.
"You could even say that I am your mother. I started this project, and if it had not been for S.T.A.A.R., we would have lost you forever."
Mikelle's vision blurs slightly as the woman who she assumes is a scientist approaches her with a look of amazement on her face. Mikelle's eyes catch sight of a red star pin on the pocket of the stranger's black blazer.
"I have no mother," Mikelle spits cruelly, glaring at the stranger, "What the hell is S.T.A.A.R.? Where am I?"
"Simple, Mikelle. We are the System for Tracking AWOL Assassin Recruits—you are a recruit. You are the only embryo that survived this preliminary research project. You are a miracle, and you are at S.T.A.A.R. headquarters, in Berlin. We have another base in Prague, which you will go home to as soon as you complete your first mission."
"You can't make me do anything," Mikelle spits through gritted teeth. The woman laughs, the wrinkles around her eyes intensifying.
"My dear, sweet, stupid girl. You will do as you've been made to do." And with that, she approaches Mikelle and presses a button that unleashes her restraints. Mikelle drops to the floor, her head spinning a moment, before she lifts her hands without any intent and causes the projector screen playing before her to fly off the wall in a minor flourish. She had not made the object move of her own accord. The device in the woman's hand causes her to stand up and aim for the projector screen once more. Mikelle watches her own hands move in time to levitate the object back into place; she no longer has any control over the telekinesis. She drops to her knees with an overwhelming weakness after performing this task, a feeling that she is being physically controlled. Hands come out of nowhere to secure Mikelle on the cold table again, restrain her arms. All she can do is cry as the woman approaches.
"My name is Mina. I am now in control of your telekinesis, and you will do everything you are told from this point on, unless you want the lives of the people you love most cut short."
Mina's cold fingers cup Mikelle's chin. Mikelle's eyes drip, the tears landing heatedly and helplessly into the shells of her ears.
"Such a perfect specimen…The way you threw doctor Vetrov..." (So that's what that bastard's name was).
"I hear he said he barely had time to tranquilize you. Such strength. I was right to have picked the perfect donors, two of Hydra's strongest agents, to make you."
Mikelle thrusts her chin out of reach, crying silently, believing at last that there's nothing she can do.
"What's more exciting is that thing growing inside of you," Mina grins, "Who knows how powerful it will be, a combination of the soldier and your strength? I cannot imagine. Time will tell."
Mikelle lifts her head, the only part of her that had not been re-secured to the metal table.
"No," she weeps, her voice barely recognizable.
"It may be possible to pass on these changes we have made in utero. You will be the first of many advanced Hydra agents, the mother of an entirely modified and perfect race."
"Don't touch my baby! I'll kill you!"
A sense of despair unlike that which she had ever felt overcomes Mikelle as she struggles against the restraints. Mina presses a button on the remote-like device she's holding and a painful shock sears down Mikelle's spine. She screams in agony before lying down, under the control and at the mercy of perfect strangers. Mikelle whimpers, the pain subsiding, wishing at that moment that they had simply killed her.
"You will start by tearing The Winter Soldier apart—"
"No—!"
"Limb. From. Limb."