Hello everyone I am back with another chapter, this chapter sees some things come to light. I won't lie this chapter was harder for me to write than the last one I must've rewritten the message from Howard at least 16 times. We are closing in on the final act of this story, I would like to thank everyone for all of the favorites and follows. I would also like to thank everyone for the reviews.
I don't own the Avengers or anything associated with it. That said enjoy the chapter.
Tony was furious, not only had Steve been hurt, but as it turns out Nick Fury wasn't dead. Instead, the super spy was standing in his tower issuing orders, the inventor knew that now wasn't the time to have this out, but self-control had never been his strong suit. "How the hell are you alive? I heard that you were killed by the one-armed man over there."
Fury wanted to laugh, he knew that Stark would be the first one to rant and rave about his apparent death. The look that the Asgardian prince was giving him was almost as funny as Stark's rant. He had to wonder if this is how Coulson felt when people discovered that he was alive. Fury could only imagine how this group would react if they discovered the truth. Stark could wait though he needed answers and he was about to get them, ignoring the inventor, for the time being, the veteran spy focused his attention on Barnes. "How did this happen? Who else knew where you were meeting Rogers?"
Bucky could only shake his head because he knew that his boss wasn't going to like any of his answers, what answers he did have at least. "Well there's Skye and me, then Steve and his sidekick."
The old spy didn't like the answer that Barnes had given him, even if it was the one he'd been expecting. Deciding to move to an empty chair the veteran spy took a seat, inhaling deeply he began contemplating everything he knew thus far surrounding Rogers movements over the last several days. Based on what he knew, the spy could figure out how they'd ended up in this situation. He was certain that if the super soldier knew about the Daedalus project then he would've raised quite a fuss about the whole business.
Hoping Barnes could provide him with more answers, he decided to press the matter further. "Where did you first make contact with Rogers?"
Bucky knew what the director was doing, he was trying to work things out. The former HYDRA assassin could appreciate his boss's ability to see the big picture, he also knew that he needed to take steps with his answers to protect the directors' source here in the tower. "I made contact at a private airfield owned by Stark Industries."
Fury feigned interest in the answer, keeping his best spy face in place he asked a follow-up question that he already knew the answer, but needed to ask for the sake of appearances. "At an airfield? Do we know where he was going, or where he was coming from?"
Bucky took a seat and motioned for Skye to do the same, giving his boss a simple nod, he gave his boss the answer he knew that he wanted. "According to the information that Skye got he went to California with Wilson and some Stark employees."
Tony had heard enough the fact that Fury had lied about his death shouldn't have come as a shock, but to learn that he was now spying on Steve and using his long-lost friend to do it was disgusting. "What right do you have to spy on Steve?! Are you spying on the rest of us?! Who else knew you were alive?"
Stopping his tirade, the inventor looked over to where the three former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were sitting. The billionaire suddenly looked like he'd been slapped in the face, as realization dawned on him. "You three knew the whole time."
None of the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents responded immediately, although the inventor had to at least give Barton credit though since he was the only one who had the decency to look guilty.
To everyone's surprise, it was Natasha that spoke up to confirm what the inventor had clearly figured out. "Yes, but in our defense, the four of us were there in D.C. when it all went down. Apart from Barton, of course, he was off on another assignment."
Thor had heard enough the fact that Fury was alive was irrelevant now. "Who knew what isn't important."
Shifting his gaze to Fury the Asgardian addressed the director directly. "What is important is that you tell us why you were spying on Steve."
The director knew that he was going to have to answer the question. Problem is time was running out to stop HYDRA, he really needed to talk to Rogers.
Before the discussion could progress, any further Dr. Banner walked into the waiting area, with his glasses in hand, fingers massaging the bridge of his nose. Everyone stood and waited, on what would hopefully be good news about Steve.
Before anyone could actually ask about the super soldier Banner raised his right hand so that he could speak before being bombarded with questions. "We should take this to the conference room. The nursing staff is finishing up in there, so it will be at least an hour maybe two before anyone can see him. Plus I could hear you all fussing even in there, besides we need to discuss Steve's wounds."
A few minutes later the group was all seated in the conference room, with the exception of Sam who'd stayed in the waiting room. The room was full of tension and anxiety, tension from the unfinished argument from just a few moments prior, and anxiety over what Bruce had to say about Steve.
Dr. Banner waited patiently for everyone to settle before he begun a disturbing explanation of the wound that plagued their leader. Looking around the table though told the scientist that the argument from a few minutes ago could erupt again at any second. The spies all were stoic looks, not betraying anything that they may or may not be feeling. Although he did notice that the young woman that was seated next to the Winter Soldier wore an expression that was equal parts awe and unsettled. He himself was shocked to see the Winter Soldier was working for Fury. Speaking of Fury he should be surprised that the former operative is alive, but given his experiences with S.H.I.E.L.D surprise isn't the feeling that comes to mind.
Thor looked like he was bursting at the seam for a fight, the prince wanted to do what he did best, fight his enemies, unfortunately for him, there was no one to take his anger out on at the moment.
Which finally brought the scientist to one Tony Stark, Pepper had taken a seat by him to hopefully help keep him calm. The billionaire was still seething and he was doing nothing to hide the fact that he was unhappy at the moment.
Deciding that now was as good of a time to start as any the scientist brought up an image of the wound of Steve's chest. "As you can see the wound is severe, thankfully the serum will take care of the injury. He's still unconscious which I think is a side-effect of the serum, basically, at any severe injury, his body goes into a comatose-like state while it repairs itself. That's probably what happened when he crashed the Valkyrie. I put him on a vitamin and fluid drip to give him nutrients so the serum can do its job. There was nothing in the wound that needed to be removed, no articles of clothing or anything like that, now to the difficult part of the conversation. The wound that Steve received is consistent with a high-intensity repulsor beam." The scientist knew that the billionaire wouldn't like that last part one little bit.
Tony didn't waste a second before refuting the scientist claim. "That's not possible, no one has that tech, even what I shared with S.H.I.E.L.D wasn't the same type of tech I use to miniaturize the tech for my suits."
"HYDRA has the tech."
All eyes turned to the red-haired spy, who'd been unusually quiet since the argument in the waiting room.
Thor suddenly had a new interest in current events asked the question that everyone wanted to know. "How is it that you know this Natasha?"
She hated doing this while Steve was lying in a hospital bed, but this was important and the time for secrets was at an end. "Sam discovered it while he was working on Steve's investigation."
Now the pieces fell into place for Bucky, especially since he better than anyone knew how Steve operated. "Well that puts things into perspective, he was alone when he showed up to the Halo International break-in, we know he went to D.C. shortly after, he most likely went to recruit Wilson. The trouble is California after he got back from there is when they tried to kill him."
The conjecture was fine but as far as Clint was concerned there's still too much that they don't know. While it was perfectly clear to him that Natasha at the very least knew something was going on, it was clear to him that even she didn't have all of the details. The archer had to hand it to Steve, he'd manage to play this better than even Fury and that was saying something, considering that Nick Fury is the standard by which people in this business measured themselves.
The archer knew that the soldier had planned to fill them in on everything once he got back, which meant that whatever he'd been working on warranted the team's attention. He also couldn't find any fault with Barnes conclusion, after all, Steve's a creature of habit so HYDRA has had plenty of chances to kill him, which means that them coming after him now was no coincidence. Then a detail hit him Barnes mentioned that he was at the Halo break-in, which explains his reaction when Hill broke the news. The archer knew there was more to the story than any of them knew. Deciding it was best to rip the band-aid off the archer put on his best interrogation face and leveled his accusation at Barnes directly. "You said that Steve showed up to the Halo International break-in. Was he chasing you, or was he chasing HYDRA?"
The Avengers that were present all remember the footage of Barnes killing the guards at the Halo International storage facility. Knowing that their Captain had been there as well raised another set of questions altogether.
Despite the question being directed at Barnes, it was Fury that decided to answer, mainly because he knew that at this point if he wanted help it was time for some honesty. "According to Barnes he never left the warehouse where he parked his bike. I think he was there for the same reason I sent Barnes in, to retrieve data for a HYDRA project."
"What project would that be?" The inventor had been quiet for the past several minutes, and while he was still angry over everything he was being mindful that his tone didn't come off that way.
Fury knew that his answer had the potential to make one person in this room very angry and he was tempted to ask him to leave but decided against it. "HYDRA is working on finishing the Daedalus project."
The normally serene face of Bruce Banner morphed into one of disdain and betrayal. "How could you do that? How could you let this happen?"
The others in the room could tell that the doctor was upset and while there were protocols in place for containing the Hulk should he make an appearance they'd thus far gone untested. Still, everyone waited on bated breath hoping that the doctor didn't turn into the thing they all silently feared.
Tony shattered the uneasy calm that had befallen the room, he knew that they needed to move the conversation forward, especially since Steve was out of action that meant he was technically in charge of the team. "So care to tell the rest of us what the Daedalus project is?"
"It's the code name for the project that was supposed to duplicate the super soldier serum." The scientist words were laced with a venom that the other Avengers were unaccustomed to.
The doctors' tone didn't go unnoticed by Fury either, the old spy hadn't wanted to have this conversation but he knew it would be better for him to come clean now then for the Avengers to learn the truth from Rogers. "I never told you that the project would stop, it'd just been put on hold, the research was at a dead end. Until the frozen corpse of Captain Rogers was discovered. Once we were able we took blood samples, shortly after taking the last one it was discovered that the Captain was actually alive, much to the shock of everyone. We went through half of the blood that we had with absolutely no progress, the research and the blood was at the New York facility. The blood and the research disappeared sometime during the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D, recently we heard rumors that HYDRA was close to perfecting the serum. We've been working to stop it ever since, but they've been a step ahead of us at every turn. Which makes no sense considering the state of the organization."
This didn't make any sense to Natasha, Steve had not once mentioned HYDRA duplicating the serum. Which meant one of three things either Fury or Steve were lying, or they both were. Well, there was a fourth possibility, Steve had told her that he was looking into this for a friend. Which meant someone approached him with this, the problem is the list of people that Steve calls a friend is so small that to her knowledge they're all here in the tower. Deciding that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission and promising that she would apologize to Steve when he woke up. For the first time since she and Steve had gotten together, she broke his confidence. "Steve said that he was doing this for a friend, I know for a fact that it wasn't Sam. So if we could figure out who whispered in Steve's ear we could maybe figure this out."
Tony was ecstatic this was something that could easily be figured out. "That won't be hard to figure out after all aside from whoever is on lockdown capsicle hasn't had any visitors prior to Wilson showing up. Which means this friend either called him or sent him an email, both of which I can find out simply by going through the tower logs."
Pepper knew that the inventor was in danger of opening up a Pandora's box, after all, the private matters of the towers residents were supposed to be private. "Tony are you sure this can't wait until Steve is awake? You all could just ask him instead of violating his privacy."
The billionaire's fingers were working tirelessly on the keyboard inputting lines of code while making alterations to other lines. "We could but this will be faster. Frankly, I would override his command authority and have a chat with his other guest if that wasn't going such a pain in the ass to do. Okay, so all of his phone calls are either to or from us, the same goes for his emails it's all just business correspondence.
Wait a second he has a video loaded into his personal terminal, it's not a format that I recognize. Let me load it up."
Again the inventor's fingers worked on the keyboard, this time inputting commands. "Sorry, the system is having to work extra hard to convert the video for the holo-display."
After a few more minutes that seemed more like three years to everyone present that wanted answers. "Okay, here we go."
After inputting one last command the projector in the center of the table flared to life, everyone was shocked to see the face of Howard Stark staring back at them.
"Hello, Steve if you're watching this video then it means two things. The first being that my wife Maria and her team successfully thawed you from the ice. The second is that I'm most likely dead. Steve, I need your help. I know that you're adjusting to the news that you've been frozen for almost 50 years. I am sorry for this, hopefully, the few days that you've spent with Maria has helped you not to feel so overwhelmed.
As I'm sure you now know, we won the war in no small part thanks to the sacrifice that you made when you took down the Red Skull. There was a period of turmoil after the war HYDRA was broken, a shell of its former self. The S.S.R shifted its attention back to the United States and the organizations that attempted to fill the void left by HYDRA.
The first few years after the war was difficult we found ourselves fighting with each other just as often as we were fighting outsiders. A lot of the soldiers that had come home and taken jobs with the S.S.R all wanted glory and prestige. So, Colonel Phillips, Peggy, and I formed S.H.I.E.L.D.
That's… Look, we had the best of intentions but I'd be lying to you if I said that mistakes weren't made. Peg, wanted to take on all-comers at once despite how small we were in the early days. Colonel Philips spent most of his time dealing with politicians and red-tape. The biggest mistakes, however, were my own. The first being hubris, you know I've never had a problem with that. My hubris led to me doing things such as keeping a vial of your blood for my own private research, I tried to steal another mans life work under the guise of security, worst of all I carried on the Red Skull's research.
While I was searching for you, I ended up finding the Tesseract in the ocean. The Skull was using it to power HYDRA's weapons, I figured I could use it to power everything else. Which led to the development of the Arc Reactor, it was a nice breakthrough, but it still wasn't as good as what the Skull developed. Of course, all anyone wanted to do with the Tesseract was to power weapons just like HYDRA had done.
I put a stop to it but once I am gone I wouldn't be surprised if S.H.I.E.L.D started experimenting with the Tesseract again. You know it's funny but I spent over 20 years working with the Tesseract and the best I could do was develop a concept of a small Arc Reactor that would fit in the palm of someone's hand. I have no clue how the Red Skull was able to get his power source no bigger than a pea.
My biggest mistake is that I didn't fight and by not fighting HYDRA has been allowed to rise from the ashes. You heard right HYDRA is back and they're stronger and more organized than ever. The worse part is that we opened up the door and welcomed them with open arms. After the war, the government made deals with many of HYDRA's scientists, they can work for us and avoid harsh punishments. Neither myself, Peg, or Colonel Philips liked the idea, the problem was we didn't have a lot of political capital back then and we decided to live with it instead of stopping it.
I'm guessing that was the opening that HYDRA used to rebuild, now they're everywhere, especially inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. We created the organization to help people, now it's being used to help shape the world in HYDRA's image.
I don't know who I can trust anymore, I know I can't trust S.H.I.E.L.D, I look at what the organization has become and it sickens me. We started this so that we could do good in the world now S.H.I.E.L.D is full of spies and assassins, they have a more gray outlook on methods and the outcomes. Not to mention just how much of the organization is now HYDRA.
No matter what you can't trust S.H.I.E.L.D when they come knocking turn them down. Alexander Pierce will have a hand in choosing the next director. While that person may or may not be HYDRA at the very least they will be loyal to him and I know that man is a HYDRA agent even if my proof is a little shaky.
Make no mistake Steve, S.H.I.E.L.D will come knocking once it gets out that you're alive everyone is going to come knocking.
There's more you need to know and this is very important because you being back complicates things. It should come as no surprise that over the years people never stopped trying to recreate the serum that was used on you.
One such attempt was funded by S.H.I.E.L.D it was codenamed the Daedalus project. Once I discovered the existence of the project I ordered it shut down. None of them knew what I know, giving the serum to the wrong people would have consequences, we know this from both you and the Red Skull. Besides I know they could've searched this world a million times over and not have found another you.
Now once S.H.I.E.L.D was formed I destroyed all of the information on project rebirth. So the only person left who knows the secrets of the serum is you, I never even told my wife. Steve, you wouldn't even believe some of the proposals I saw for recreating the serum. Would you believe that one group of college professors want to use gamma radiation? Gamma! Of all the stupid theories, they'll be lucky if the worst thing they do is blow themselves up.
Look… I… Well, I could sit here and talk to you all day long, man how I wish that I could. I'm sure by now Maria has explained to you how I figured that you were actually frozen. So I'll spare you those details, she is going to get you up to speed before you guys head back to the states.
As far as the general public is concerned she is somewhere in Europe on holiday and don't worry about her team they think they were retrieving the remains of some archeological specimen that was stolen during the war. You may notice that Maria is younger than me, you wouldn't be wrong, don't let that fool you she's brilliant, well not me brilliant but still, she's pretty smart.
You can trust her, just as I do, she'll be the only person that knows who you really are. She's going to bring you in as her personal security, that way it won't raise a lot of questions when you two spend so much time together.
Also, I have a son his name is Tony. God Steve, I can't wait for you to meet him. I mean he's… well, in a nutshell, he's me. I… well I don't want this HYDRA trouble to find him, he is smart enough that he can do whatever he wants, I just want him to have that opportunity.
Now there are a few things that are going to happen once you guys return stateside. First and foremost Maria is going to take over the company. Her first order of business is going to be shutting down all weapons manufacturing within the company. I will not continue to provide weapons to those people HYDRA can get their toys from someone else. She will get blowback from the board but we've already planned for this, so it won't be anything she can't handle.
Now for this last part and please forgive me for this Steve, I need you to fight HYDRA. It's got to be you, you've beaten them once I know you can do it again. I know you wanted to put down the mantle of Captain America once the war was over. I also know this is a lot to put on you as you're adjusting to everything and if you don't want to do it that's fine. Maria will still bring you back to the United States and see that you're set up with a new life somewhere.
But you may be the only person I know that can do this, they'll never be able to buy you off, you won't compromise yourself, and more importantly, you stand for something. This is a war and to fight wars one needs soldiers, it just so happens that I'm friends with the greatest soldier that the world has ever known. I need you to please be Captain America just one more time, put HYDRA down once and for all.
If you decide to do this once you get back to New York I set you up at the old project rebirth lab. I bought the whole thing from the government for a dollar. All the evidence that I've collected against HYDRA is there as well as weapons and money for your fight. Plus other amenities inside the envelope with this video there's a slip of paper the numbers on that paper should look familiar to you, that is the code that will get you into the building. Maria can fill you in on the rest if you decide to do this.
Well… I guess this is goodbye, I wish I was able to actually talk with you again, but the reality is that we will never get that chance. So, let me say this, Steve take care of yourself and no matter what happens, find someone to settle down with. Because none of this is worth doing if you don't have anyone to come home to."
With that, the video stopped everyone at the table was speechless at what they had just watched, none more so than Tony Stark. "I don't believe this, but this isn't news to us we already know that HYDRA is still around. So, why has Steve been acting so funny?"
Fury knew that the inventor was correct, Howard's message while a surprise, it was hardly news. The veteran spy was a little unnerved to learn that Howard stark had figured all this out over 20 years ago, it made him question how he could've been so blind to what had been going on right under his nose. "I don't think it's just about HYDRA being inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. I think that the Captain has stumbled into something else, something so earth-shattering that HYDRA risked attacking him in the open to shut him up."
Everyone at the table was all thinking the same thing. What exactly had Steve walked into?
