A/N: If you can't picture Victoria's cuffs, picture Elsa's cuffs from Frozen when she got captured and thrown in prison!
The next few minutes pass by in a blur. Two agents snap what essentially look like iron mittens (minus the thumb section) onto my hands. Their weight immediately makes my arms hang. It looks like I have two oversized bullets at the ends of my arms and I can't help but feel slightly panicked. Without my hands—without my powers or my fists—I am nothing. But my panic is overshadowed by the confusion that's raging inside me like a violent tempest on the sea.
See? I told you. I belong in a poetry café. I need to start sporting a beret.
Bucky. That's all I can think of as the agents snap handcuffs on the rest of the group and shove us into the back of an armored van that's ready and waiting for us. Two armed guards with helmets and face guards get in with us and take out sticks that are humming with electricity. One guard waves one in our faces and says, "Don't try to get smart with us." Then the van takes off. I have no idea where we're going but I can guess.
Somewhere remote to kill us all. With no news helicopters in view this time.
THINK, Fizzy!
But nothing comes to mind. All I can see is Bucky's face. Hear him saying, "Who the hell is Bucky?" as he glares at us. No recognition in his eyes. What am I saying? Of course he doesn't recognize us. We haven't been able to see his face this whole time but he's certainly been able to see ours—and this hasn't stopped him from trying to kidnap me or kill Steve. He doesn't know who we are. Who is he now? What's been done to him? How did he die in war in the 1940's and show up as an assassin in the twenty-first century?
How have all three of us made it to this point?
Natasha's words ring in my ears: I wonder what poor bastard they froze to make him.
HYDRA. This is all HYDRA's doing. Bucky fell from that train and somehow, inexplicably, HYDRA found him. They took him, the way they took me, and they did something far worse to him than they did to me. I still know who I am. I still have my memories. For whatever reason, HYDRA decided not to mess with my mind. But Bucky…
I'm lost in tormented thought for a long time. I only snap to when I hear Steve talking about Bucky: "He didn't know who we were," Steve is saying in a low voice. "HYDRA must have found him after he fell and…" His voice trails off and he looks beyond depressed.
"Hey, Steve, none of this is your fault," Natasha says quietly. I'm a bit surprised. Comforting doesn't really seem like the Ice Queen's style—but then again, the Black Widow always seems to do the opposite of what I expect. It's her mysterious style. She winces then, pressing a hand to her upper left shoulder, and I realize numbly that there's a hole torn into her upper arm and blood stains her entire upper half torso. She lets out a groan and leans back; her skin is unnaturally pale and her breathing is a little too shallow. She's seriously hurt.
"Hey," Sam says sharply, noticing her wound. He turns to the two agents sitting next to him. "This woman needs medical attention now, or else she's gonna—"
One of the guards snaps out his glowing electricity laser stick thing (forgive me, my official weapons knowledge is still pretty lame) in a menacing sort of way and Sam falls silent. But then the guard turns and stabs their stick into the guard next to them. The stabbed one lets out a muted groan, shaking violently for a few seconds as they get shocked, and then they hit the ground. We all watch in confused fascination as the guard who did the attacking yanks off their masked helmet and shakes out their hair.
"Thank god," she says, wincing and rubbing her head. "That thing was squeezing my brain!"
High cheekbones. Slim face. Brown hair. "Agent Hill!" I say, keeping my joy low-pitched so the driver doesn't hear (though with a wall between us, he's not likely to).
"Parcel!" she says, smiling at me. Then she notices Sam. "Who is this?"
"Sam Wilson at your service," says Sam. "Would you mind…?" He holds his handcuffed hands out to her.
"Oh, right." She pulls out a heavy-looking dagger and snaps the links on everyone's cuffs. Then she looks at mine. "I'm not sure how I'm gonna get these off," she says. "Hmmm… Oh, wait just a minute." She dives and digs in the pockets of the fallen guard, pulling out a key. "Aha! Let's try these." She sticks the tiny key into a slot in my right metal mitten and twists it. The mitten falls open on a small hinge, freeing my hands. She unlocks my left hand as well and the first thing I do is scratch all over my face. Who knew how much I'd miss my hands until I couldn't use them for a little while? Then I flex my fingers and crack my knuckles.
Sam winces. "That's really not healthy."
"Yeah," I say sarcastically, "because engaging in a fight with HYDRA is so great for our health."
"Alright, listen up," says Agent Hill. "This armored van is the last in a row of cars. And I have a plan to get out of here. We've been on the road for…" She checks a wristwatch. "About twenty minutes. We're right on schedule. I have a van parked in a remote location thirty minutes from where you got picked up. We'll have a ten minute walk but that's fine. We need to get going. The thing is—you need to be silent and you need to stay still."
"What's the plan?" Natasha asks.
Agent Hill gives a grim smile and pulls out a thin silver stick.
Oh no. Not this again. I let out an audible groan and say, "You're going to make us jump out of the car."
"Parcel's got the right idea," says Agent Hill. "But once you drop onto the road, roll to keep from getting burned—and stay on the road. It's a straight road so they won't see you as long as you stay directly behind the cars. Once we're all on the road, we'll all make a break for it at once to avoid them seeing us multiple times in the side view mirrors. Oh, and we need to work quickly so no other car runs us over. Are you ready?"
We all nod and she says, "Steve, help me. Hold the piece in place as I cut, otherwise it'll fall out and make a noise."
She begins to burn a hole with her silver stick thing, the powerful blue flame cutting cleanly through the steel of the back doors of the van. She cuts a large circle and as she comes close to finishing it, Steve grabs its edges to keep it from falling out. When she's done, he gently lowers it to the floor of the van.
"Alright," hisses Agent Hill. "Let's go. Steve, Romanoff, Sam, and then Parcel. I'll come last."
Steve doesn't even hesitate. He throws himself out of a van moving at eighty miles per hour like he does this on a daily basis. Which, considering who he is, maybe he does. He rolls expertly and then crouches on the road, exactly behind the path the cars are taking. Natasha leaps out seconds after he does, rolling again, and crouching. She's about twenty feet ahead of Steve. Sam leaps out, rolling like a pro, and crouching. What the heck is this? Is this something everyone is taught? Did I miss this lesson in school? My scraped up, bloody arms and legs are not going to thank me for this. I don't even take a deep breath. I just throw myself out of the van, going into a roll. I sort of hit the ground with a smack, manage to roll a few feet and then I lay there, groaning and mumbling pained oaths to myself. Every part of my body feels burned and torn, as if I've been cheese grated. I know my jump wasn't even close to how graceful and agile everyone else's was.
"Alright!" Agent Hill calls. I leap to my feet. "Let's go!"
We all make a mad dash for the forest on the right side of the road, sprinting as fast as we can, praying no one in any of the cars will notice the five figures who've just sprinted in their side mirrors' lines of vision into the forest. As we crash through the forest we close the distance between us until we're running in a line only a few feet apart and I'm proud to say that not only can I keep up with them, I'm ahead of all of them.
Well, except for Steve. But we all know he's just a super soldier show off.
"This way!" Agent Hill shouts, turning to the left. We run for a few more minutes and then we enter a clearing where a black van waits. She jumps into the driver's seat, Steve is in the shotgun seat, and the rest of us crawl in the back, which has all the seats flattened so it's just one flat surface. Agent Hill floors it, entering onto a dirt road that leads perpendicular to the road the HYDRA brigade was traveling on, getting farther and farther away from them. I wonder when they'll realize we're gone. Hopefully it'll be whenever they reach their destination.
Sam and I lay Natasha down and I frantically look around the van for some type of first aid kid. I don't find any but I do find a cloth laying on the side so, hoping it's clean, I press it to her wound to keep the blood in. "Agent Hill, hurry up!" I say. "She's bleeding a lot."
"On it, Parcel," Agent Hill calls back.
"Okay, where did this nickname come from?" Steve asks. No one answers.
I motion for Sam to take over holding the cloth down because I want to talk to Steve for a moment but Natasha suddenly grabs my wrist in a vice-like grip. Ouch. The woman is strong even despite losing a lot of blood. I look down into her face and she mouths, Thank you. I hesitate. I'm not sure what she's thanking me for—stopping her from bleeding out? Or something else? Either way, she's in no position to be explaining anything right now so I nod at her and crawl over to Steve after Sam takes over holding the cloth down while cracking a joke about how Natasha still looks great despite being shot. I hear her let out a raspy chuckle.
"Steve," I say, kneeling on my knees beside his seat. "What are we going to do about Bucky?"
The atmosphere in the car changes immediately. I can tell everyone is now listening to me. It makes me uncomfortable but what can I do? There's no hiding anything from these people anymore. I'm an intensely private person but we're all in this together now. "He didn't know us," I continue, flashes of Bucky's glaring—and empty—eyes repeatedly whirling in my mind. What's been done to my best friend? My stomach has a burning, sick feeling when I think about the fact that he's been trying to kill us (and kidnap me) this whole time. Bucky Barnes would never…
But he's not Bucky Barnes right now.
"We're going to stop him," Steve says firmly, "and help him. He doesn't know what he's doing. HYDRA must have done something to him. Erased his memories or something."
"What if you can't stop him, Steve?" Agent Hill asks calmly. "What if the choice is kill—or be killed?"
Steve's mouth opens for a moment and he seems unable to speak. I can see the pain in his blue eyes and I know it's reflected in my own eyes. The thought of killing Bucky, even a Bucky who has no idea who we are and is a killer… No. I won't think about it. Push it away, like I do with everything else. "It won't come down to that," Steve says, though his voice doesn't exactly sound one hundred percent certain. "It won't," he insists again and Agent Hill doesn't say anything in response. I can tell, however, from the expression on her face that she's not as sure as Steve. And I know, in that moment, that Agent Hill won't hesitate to kill Bucky if she needs to. In fact…
I glance back at Natasha and Sam. I'm sure either of them won't hesitate to kill him if they need to. And I understand. Staying alive is more important for them than trying to help someone they don't know. But this means I have to keep them away from Bucky. He needs help—not a bullet in the heart.
Does he? whispers an ugly voice in my mind. What if he can't come back? What if he's past saving?
Shut your ugly mouth, I instruct myself sternly.
Can you do it? Can you kill him? You've killed before. Innocent people. And whoever Bucky is now, he's not innocent. So…can you do it?
God, having a conscious is such an annoying thing. My kingdom for a truly heartless soul that doesn't always try to guilt-trip me into doing the heroic thing even when my instincts are more selfish.
"How did you even get here, Agent Hill?" Steve asks suddenly, a confused expression on his face. "None of us called you."
"I knew something was wrong," she replies, not taking her eyes off the road. "Fury let me know SHIELD was compromised and he was mailing…Parcel to me." Her eyes flick to me. "But when I didn't hear from Fury at the parcel drop sight, I got suspicious and hacked into SHIELD systems—and I saw that you were a wanted man, Steve. All efforts were being directed into hunting you down for Fury's murder. I knew there was no way you were involved in the Director's death so I flew here as fast as I could under deep cover and got to work trying to get to you. And make preparations for…other things."
"Where are we going now?" I ask. "The Triskelion?"
Agent Hill presses her lips together. "No. First there's someone we need to meet with."
Water dripped down the dirty cement walls and the cheap fluorescent lights gave everyone a ghastly green glow. It definitely wasn't the nicest work setting he'd ever been situated in but it wasn't the worst, not by far. It didn't matter to him anyway. He sat in a patient chair, staring off at the wall opposite from him, while scientists bent over his cybernetic arm, fixing whatever damage that man had done.
That man. He was strong and fast—as strong and fast as him, the Winter Soldier recognized, and this puzzled him slightly. How could a normal human be as advanced as him? Regular humans weren't made like he was. Yet that man had fought with unbelievable ferocity and the Winter Soldier had even, for a tiny moment during their fight, believed that he might be defeated for the first time in his existence.
Yet the man didn't kill him.
And then there was the girl—Asset 56, she was called. His job had been to retrieve her and twice he had failed. He couldn't surmise how one small human female had managed to escape him from twice. It was…wrong. It didn't compute. But she had powers—he had witnessed this during his battle with the blond man. He hadn't been aware that the girl had extra abilities, no one had briefed him on this, but there was no denying it. She had used her arms to somehow move and lift and slam things and him without touching anything… He felt a slight twinge of irritation at her escaping him twice. She was an insignificant insect that he had to capture but there was…something…about her…
What had the girl and the man called him? "Bucky." He didn't understand what they meant—why they both stared at him as if they somehow knew him—but it bothered him, this not understanding. These variables didn't connect with the information he already had on—
He was holding onto something icy and cold. The wind was tearing into his face and eyes and he could feel unbelievable terror. Everything was white, blinding white—
He was grabbing a thin arm and looking into someone's gray-blue eyes and she was staring at him with shock and anger—
"Besides, you're busy!" And then he was watching a girl run away from him, auburn-gold glinting in dim lights—
"Bucky!" screamed a man with a blond face and blue eyes as he fell—
Falling falling falling falling—
Pain—
No no no—
"NO!" The scream suddenly burst out of him as the strange images hurtled through his mind and he slammed his cybernetic arm out, sending the scientists flying. He whirled and grabbed the other man on his other side and threw him wildly against the wall. His heart was thundering and his head was hurting and he felt confused—what had just happened to him? What had he just seen? What—
Someone jammed a needle into his neck from behind and immediately he felt the effects, the strength draining from his muscles. He slumped back into the chair, his mind going dull as his world got more numb and blurry. The man…the girl…something…he was thinking of something…
A face floated into view and he blinked twice to make the image clearer. Pierce. Leader. Authority.
"Status report," came Pierce's voice.
The man with the blond hair. He had looked so—
"Status report," came Pierce's voice more sharply. The Winter Soldier knew he had to respond right away—his superior was speaking to him—but he couldn't stop thinking about the man and the girl and the way they had stared at him, the way they had stared—
SLAP. His face snapped to the side and his cheek stung but other than that, he didn't react. This happened ever now and then, when he was slow to obey. He had to make sure this didn't happen again.
"The man on the bridge," he mumbled. "The girl with the…" With the hair like honey.
"What?" Pierce asked sharply.
"Who were they?" he asked slowly, still staring at the floor in bewildered confusion. "They said…
"You met them earlier this week on an assignment," said Pierce. "When you failed to retrieve Asset 56." His voice was sharp and the Winter Soldier dully recognized that he had failed in his mission for the first time ever.
"But they…" The Winter Soldier didn't even understand what he was trying to say. His chest felt tight. He didn't understand why.
"Soldier. Listen to me." Pierce ignored the Winter Soldier's childish mumbles and knelt by him, looked him right in the eyes, and the Winter Soldier averted his gaze. He felt a hot sensation searing his stomach. Shame. He had messed up. He hadn't obeyed. This was wrong. He was supposed to obey. He was supposed to kill the man and get the girl. What had he done?
He had failed.
But they…
"Your work has been a gift to mankind," Pierce said slowly. "You've shaped the century."
A gift to mankind. The words rang in the Winter Soldier's throbbing head. He had shaped the century. Yes. He had done well. He was a good soldier. He did what he was told and he never missed his mark. Except for now. He kept stumbling. Kept making mistakes. Who were they?
Such blue eyes.
"Bucky?"
"And I'm going to need you to do it one more time," said Pierce. "Do you understand?"
The Winter Soldier struggled to speak. Something was terribly wrong with him. He recognized this. He had never disobeyed to this extent. He had never ignored orders this way. He wasn't thinking about what the leader was saying at all and this was—wrong. He shouldn't be thinking about the man or the young woman at all. But he…
"But I knew them," he whispered and as he said it, he felt a funny jerking sensation behind his naval, as if he were falling. His mind was filled with images of a bridge—snow—the man with the blond hair and the blue eyes that shot him through—the girl whirling and running away from him—her hair— He suddenly knew it was true. He didn't understand the how or the why or the when but he understood the what. The piece fit neatly into his mind and he desperately tried to grasp for the other variables. The other pieces of the puzzle.
Pierce regarded him for a moment with what seemed like cold disappointment and then he stood up. "Wipe him," he commanded to a young scientists near the door.
Wiping. The Winter Soldier felt a little colder suddenly. It was time again. He didn't like it when this happened.
"But s-sir, he's been out of cryo for too long," stammered the scientist.
Pierce took about as much notice of the scientist as he would have of an ant crawling on his shoe. "Wipe him," he repeated calmly and then strode from the room without a backwards glance.
Two scientists timidly approached the Winter Soldier, afraid that he'd attack them as well, but he sat back in his chair. He knew how this went. This was routine. Someone offered him a mouth clamp and he bit down onto it, sullenly staring blankly in front of him, seeing nothing. His heart began to pound faster in anticipation to the pain that was coming. Metal cuffs snapped down onto his arms as did cuffs around his ankles, locking them to the base of the chair. He leaned back. His chest was heaving now. He wouldn't like this one bit. He never did. It was the only time he ever wondered what the peaceful oblivion of death felt like.
But this was his duty.
He leaned his head back and they lowered the humming electrode head cage around him, connecting the pieces to his scalp. Someone flipped the on switch—
Last minute flickering images of blue eyes, golden-auburn hair, and a word—
"Bucky?"
But I knew them.
And then he started screaming, teeth clenched, as unbelievable pain surged through his mind, ripping apart his mind and melting his mind. His screaming echoed throughout the room even as most everyone left and the lights went semi-dark. And on and on and on he screamed.
Agent Hill drives for another twenty five minutes before she pulls up to a huge sewer pipe—and I mean huge, like as tall as two men and as wide as eight men standing shoulder to shoulder—that's built under an underpass. "We're going in there?" I demand, a little revolted. No thank you. I did not sign up to go wading through human waste and rabid rats.
"Don't worry, it's not what you think," says Agent Hill. And that's all she says. A woman of little words, she is.
Despite looking not very well, Natasha is able to walk—er, stumble—on her own, propping herself against Sam. We follow Agent Hill into the sewer pipe and I try not to think of dragons or huge basilisks hiding in the depths. It's relatively clean and well-lit inside but you never know. After seeing both of my dead friends somehow back to life and having one of them try to attack me twice, I'd almost rather meet a dragon.
Agent Hill leads us through some twists and turns for a few minutes and then there's a man running at us, wearing all-black. Steve and I tense, immediately going into fight mode, but Agent Hill waves us off and calls to the man, "Romanoff's been shot—she needs help immediately."
"Wait, where are we?" Natasha demands, looking pale. "I'm not getting help until I see who we're meeting."
Agent Hill suppresses a sigh and you can almost see the THIS idiot expression on her face but she says, "Fine, he can attend to you in the room. Hurry up." She leads us to a door set at the end of one of the tunnels (is that supposed to be there?) and knocks four times before entering. We push through a set of hanging curtains to see—
"Does anyone ever stay dead anymore?" I demand. Shock flows through my veins.
"Good to see you too, Miss Marsden," says Fury.
"Thanks," says Steve.
I cover my face with my hands. When will I learn to control my tongue? I'm an idiot.
Natasha looks stunned, her eyes white and wide, and she collapses in a chair near Fury, who's laying on a hospital-type of bed in a large and empty room. There's some machines next to him, hooked up to his arm and neck. White bandages cover his bare chest and stomach. He's still wearing his eye patch, though. Does he sleep with that thing? Shower with it? Go on dates with it? You gotta wonder.
"How are you alive?" Natasha asks in a weary voice as a medic kneels by her to address her wound. "Your heart stopped."
"We can thank Dr. Banner for that," says Fury. "He invented a solution that slows down heart rates to one beat per minute. He was trying to invent a synthetic way to keep calm. Unfortunately it didn't work for him…but we found a use for it anyway."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Natasha asks quietly.
"Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful," replies Agent Hill.
"I didn't know who to trust," adds Fury.
Ouch. I look at Natasha, knowing this must hurt on some level. Her face is devoid of any emotion but I can sense hurt flickering beneath her surface. This bothers her, that Fury didn't know if he could trust her or not.
"Fill us in on what's happened so far," commands Fury (demanding as ever, I see). He winces for a moment, gingerly touching his bandages.
Natasha is in no mood to talk. Sam isn't familiar enough with what's going on. I don't think I can explain properly. So we all turn and stare expectantly at Steve. He sighs but gets to work explaining to Fury everything that's happened since he was shot to death—er, supposed death—in Steve's apartment.
When he finishes, he asks, "So when you said 'Keep your safe', you meant because…"
"Of her powers," Fury finishes. Everyone looks at me and I scowl. Go away. Shoo. I don't like all eyes on me. Thankfully they all turn back to Fury when he begins to speak again. "We have, of course, picked up on other people with powers around the world—we have retrieval teams everywhere. Or we had them, at any rate. But none of those powers have been innate. They've all been through injections, serums, experiments gone wrong… Marsden here is the first we've come across who seems to have been born with her powers, though they manifested later on. That makes her unbelievably powerful, especially since we don't know how her powers will grow with her as she ages." He frowns at me like I'm a science experiment and I shift uncomfortably. He's making me feel like I'm a ticking time b—
"And Bucky?" Steve demands, cutting off my thoughts. "Did you know about him?"
"I promise you, I didn't know about Barnes," says Fury. Steve scowls. He doesn't look like he much believes him. Fury can clearly see this because he insists, "It's wrong, what's been done to your friend. But he's not your friend anymore and if he gets in our way—"
"We are not taking him down," Steve says loudly.
Silence falls and I can feel the tension mounting as Steve and Fury stare at each other. They're not exactly glaring but they're…hard-staring. Mean-mugging. Clearly neither of them wants to relinquish his position.
I roll my eyes at the alpha male battle going on—god, do men ever stop with the testosterone-fuelled wars?—and slowly say, "We're not going to kill Bucky. End of story." My voice is hard and Fury looks at me. "You want my powers at your disposal?" I ask. "You want me on your side? Then Bucky is off the table."
"Victoria's right," says Steve loudly. "You had your chance, Fury. But SHIELD is done. Now we're doing this my way."
Fury raises an eyebrow in an Oh, are you now? fashion. "So you're giving the orders now, are you, Cap?"
"Yes," says Steve firmly, "I am."
They both stare at each for another moment and then you can literally feel Steve win. Fury backs away (in spirit) and lets out a low, hoarse chuckle punctuated by some painful-sounding coughs. "Alright then," he says. "We'll do this your way, Cap. Get to work."
The plan is simple—and yet difficult. I'm not sure I understand some of the technical mumbo jumbo Agent Hill says but I get the gist of it. There are three helicarriers and when they rise into the air, Zola's algorithm will allow them to point their guns at exactly who they need to. We need to replace some technological thing of theirs with some technological thing of ours. I don't really get that bit but I get that it'll give us control over the helicarriers and it'll disrupt the algorithm, so the helicarriers won't know where to point the guns. So that's all we need to do. Simple. Easy. Cake.
Except for the bit where we need to break into the Triskelion and get onto these three helicarriers without being detected or dying.
"Agent Romanoff and I will take internal," says Agent Hill. What? I stare at her in confusion and she sighs. "We'll take the building," she says. "Steve, Sam, and you can take the helicarriers. One for each of you."
I admit, I'm surprised for a moment. She's trusting me to do this alongside them? I was half-expecting her to baby me and tell me I'd have to sit this one out due to not having formal training. But she's letting me do this. Good. I may not be a trained SHIELD agent or a superhero but I still know how to fight and I still have my powers and I'm still determined to destroy HYDRA.
No one argues with me taking on a helicarrier. Either the job is easier than I'm thinking—or they've accepted that I'm a part of this team and not just some little victim. Whatever. I don't care. I'm glad to be in on the action.
"How are we going to get into the Triskelion?" I ask. "I'm sure it's full of HYDRA agents by now."
"Leave that up to me," says Agent Hill, smiling grimly. "I can manage that. It's what happens once we get inside that matters. I'm going to head straight for the control room. Natasha—we need to get you up to Pierce and take him out. Sam, Steve, and Parcel—"
Is she going to call me that forever? I have too many nicknames now.
"—are going to head for the helicarriers. We need to time this correctly. We can't switch the chips out before they take off because then we won't be able to destroy the helicarriers, and it gives people a better chance of switching the chips back in and out. So you need to get on them and wait till they take flight."
"Sounds good," says Steve, "but we're going to make a quick stop at the control room before we go."
Agent Hill frowns at him. "Cap…I don't think we have the time f—"
"The true agents of SHIELD deserve to know what's going on," he says and I bite back a smile. Honorable Steve. His straight-as-an-arrow morals are going to get him hurt one day—but there's something really nostalgic and…nice about the fact that someone out there is just a decent person. I'm not a decent person. I don't think any of us in the room are decent people. Heck, even Steve probably has his not-decent sides. But he's the best out of all of us and I can say that without any bias.
Agent Hill decides it's best not to argue (wise of her; no one stands in between Steve and telling the truth) and we move on. There isn't much else to plan. This is a risky, rogue mission. We don't have backup, we don't have the law on our side, we don't know who to trust, and we don't have endless weapons and jets and the like. We're just five people—six, if you count the injured Fury—who are trying to take down an invisible enemy. It'll be a miracle if we can pull this off.
"But first," says Steve, as we're about to leave, "we need uniforms." Luckily, Agent Hill's been smart enough to remember that some of us might not have uniforms so she nabbed a few from the Triskelion. She managed to get the Black Widow's suit and I get to see Natasha as the real Black Widow for the first time, all black leather and badass. She gives me a slim-fit black suit made out of the same type of material diving suits are (I think) but I choose to keep my Converse and royal blue hoodie. I don't know why I keep the hoodie; it's large and the color pops and is highly visible—but it helps me feel safe. Guarded, like I have a cocoon around me. She has Steve's Captain America suit as well, the sleek dark navy with the white symbol on front but Steve says, "I had something a little different in mind…"
"Go, go, go!" Steve leaps into the backseat of the car and Agent Hill neatly peels away from the Smithsonian's back entrance without attracting any attention. I gape at Steve. I can't help it. He's wearing his old uniform—his old, original uniform, from World War II. Seeing him in it…it's like I'm seeing him in it for the first time, reliving that strange day. Wanting an ice cream. Chasing after him and Agent Carter and the man with the gun, who I now know was a HYDRA member. Feeling oddly shy around Steve because he was so big. In fact, I'm still not so used to seeing him look so big, though I'm not scared of him now. I'm just…confused around him. Still, it's like taking a trip into my past when I see the bright blue and red, the stars and stripes, slightly faded and worn by time but still in relatively good condition. Captain America. My Steve Rogers.
I feel a lump in my throat and I suddenly want to say so much to Steve but, as usual, now isn't the time for speaking.
"I can't believe you stole your old suit," says Natasha.
"I think I'll need it," Steve says.
I glance at him. Everyone looks a bit confused but no one's asking any questions. His tone isn't inviting questions. Still…I can't help but wonder if he's put on his old suit because it's the last suit Bucky saw him in. Does a part of Steve hope that if Bucky sees this suit, he'll remember Steve?
I think a part of me hopes that, too.
We make it to the Triskelion without any problems. Agent Hill parks at a small, isolated shed about a mile away from the actual building, parking behind a thicket of trees. We follow her as she unlocks the shed and ushers us inside. She shuts the door, locks it behind her, and yanks a string hanging from the ceiling. A dull light bulb flickers to life—illuminating a passage that descends into the ground on a steep slant. "This passage leads all the way to a service entrance at the Triskelion," explains Agent Hill. "It used to be used to bring in large cargo—but that was before we had the new garages and hangars built. No one uses this passage anymore. Unfortunately, the lights inside have died out so we'll be in total darkness for a mile. If anyone's scared of the dark, now's the time to get over it."
She yanks the string, plunging us into darkness, and we take off running. The floor slants for a bit and then it flattens out again. It's very weird to be running in pitch darkness with only the sounds of everyone's quiet breathing around us. No one sounds winded. We're all in shape. I keep hitting someone's feet so I press close to the wall and bypass everyone, running ahead of the group. Soon I hear them fall far behind.
"You're still fast."
Steve's whisper comes from right ahead of me and I can't help but jump a little in shock. "Cripes!" I hiss. "You scared me!"
I hear him chuckle once. "Sorry. But cripes? Don't you think that's a little outdated now? We need to get with the times, right?"
"You're outdated, Grandpa," I volley back, knowing it's a lame shot. After all, if Steve is a grandpa, then what does that make me? Then I add, "And of course I'm still fast. Beat you in every race we ran."
"Not anymore," he whispers. I detect a smile in his voice, despite all the garbage I've given him.
"Wanna bet?" I whisper back. And without waiting for an answer, I sprint. Throw myself forward, running so fast my feet barely seem to touch the floor. I'm almost flying and it's exhilarating. I've forgotten how much fun running is when you're not being chased by the cops or by some thug. I race for a while and then the floor suddenly slants upwards and I push forward, sprinting up the slope until the ground levels out again. I stop, panting slightly, and the light flickers on without me pulling the string. Steve's leaning against the wall, waiting, arms folded, small smile on his face. Damn. It.
"Not a word," I warn.
"Wasn't planning on it," he says.
We wait for Agent Hill, Natasha, and Sam to catch up, which they do five minutes later. "Damn," pants Sam. Now he's winded. "I know Cap's a super-soldier but what's up with you, Vicky?" I see Steve wince when Sam calls me by the dreaded "Vicky." I wince too. I hate any and all variations of my full name.
I shrug. "Born fast."
Agent Hill approaches the door and gently nudges it open, peeking out slightly. The coast is obviously clear because she says, "Ready? Follow me," and strides out, leaving us to silently follow her. We're crazy to do this but I think we're just crazy enough to pull this off. Time to challenge HYDRA…because what would a day in my life be without risking my life a couple (hundred) times?