M's POV

There is a bad joke somewhere about a Nazi and two Super Soldiers stuck in a bush together. It's probably a joke that's not able to be talked about. All I can say this inspiration for a joke was in reality making me uncomfortable. Physically I'm fine. I can crouch in a small place for hours and not feel tired, I'm uncomfortable because there's a not yet zombie doctor looking at Steve and I though that weird rubber gas-mask he wore. Steve on the other hand was being a complete champ about all of this. He was leaning back against the tree that the bush was butting up against. On the other side of the bush was a dirt road. The tire tracks from what the Not-Yet-Zombie-Nazi said looked to be the same as the ones Schmidt was using. I'll say this, and I'm not excited about it. I'm gad the idiot-Sand-for-Brains can point that out. Maybe I'll use him as a shield and match Steve?

I can't use Kroenen as a shield, I know that would destroy the time space paradox I'm in if he dies. But damn I hate even being in the same breathing space as him. We had gone from agreeing we weren't going to kill each other, and that once Schmidt was dead we could all go back on our separate paths. Let's just say, I'm really not happy about this.

"Valkyrie," Kroenen said his head tilting towards me. He must have noticed me glairing at him and he corrected himself poorly. "Speical Agent Valkyrie. Have you done something like this before?"

Have I been on a mission before? I think that's what he's asking. Maybe he's reading me. My stomach feels like someone put it on the spin cycle and my heart was running a marathon at the same time. But what good would it do to lie to him? If I want to survive all of this and make it back home, I'm going to have to be truthful to him. At least I'll be more truthful to him than he ever was to me. "I'm still on my first mission... I've never completed one before that wasn't meant for children."

"There are missions for children?" The German Tinker Toy teased. "What do you do? Play hopscotch while defusing bombs?"

"No." I said quietly but trying to add a pointedness to my voice. "I went hiking and took survival courses... Learned to read old german and other languages..." I looked back down the road, my guard rising hard. "Look, I know I haven't had the experience, but, I know enough."

The idea must have been caught in that deranged mind of his because for one moment the doctor was pointng and me then to Steve. "Wait... You're both, utterly out of your depth? Neither of you have ever broken into, anywhere have you?"

Steve winced and looked to waffle his head from side to side. He was innocent, but I had to remind myself he was a kid from New York during the Depression. What do you think a kid like that would be? A 'yes sir' and 'no m'am' kind of guy? Fuck no. "I used to break into the cinema with Bucky... Not the same, and I'm not as small as I used to be."

"So I am dealing with two... super soldier babies." His voice did not sound impressed by our lack of credentials. Well I am sorry Karl, I didn't have time to become an agent because you ruined my life. Not like I can say that to him.

"Think of us as students instead of babies." I said trying to cut him off. "And Steve and I got this far. He would have. gotten me out of that tree."

Being between an asshole German and whatever I am Steve looked at me with a pleading look. Sure he's a big man now, but internally he was a scrawny kid who is ready to keep his friends safe. "How much more fighting are you going to do M?"

I could probably fight Kroenen from now until the day he decided to kill me. No idea when that will be, but I'm ready for it. He might think he has the upper hand on me. Sure, he's strong, he's older than me, he's smarter than me. He might be smarter than me.. Is he smarter than me? I don't really need to know that, but if I'm a super soldier like everyone says I am, then would I be smarter than the man who tricked me as a child? Was all of that just some unfair sport?

I should apologize though, right now Kroenen is not my enemy. He used me as a pawn for a reason, but maybe he just remembered me from right now and knew that he had pissed me off... This is why time travel is dangerous. You just go and start thinking about the circular logic and suddenly you are realizing with out Christianity the Yakuza would never exist and more importantly Mario would never exist.

"Just enough to keep things interesting." I said not really wanting to submit to the masked man across from me.

"I do like interesting things Valkyrie."

Is there a way one can suppress an eye roll? For me I just focus on something hard until my eyes shake. That's what I constantly want to do. Stare at something with an intensity for my eyes to shake. That's just how Kroenen made me feel every time he said something, anything... I think it's just his presence that makes me want to punch him in the face. "Well I don't."

There was a small sigh from my Liberty Seeking Street Kid. "Can you both stop it? M, what's going on? You've been jumping at everything he's said. We're on the same team."

"For now." I muttered quietly.

"Now I am confused." Kroenen started as he pointed at me. "Is some of your family in Germany in trouble? Are the in prison or something? Is that why you hate me?"

Anger slid up from my stomach and all the way up to the sides of my face. "For Fuck's sakes Karl, you ruined my life!"

I shouldn't have said that. The moment it was out of my mouth I knew I shouldn't have said that. It was too close to telling him what he had done, and he can't know that, he can't ever know that if I want the timeline to stay the same. Breathing deeply I just shook my head over and over again. "Lets just be quiet until all of this is over. When it is, you can go back to Ilsa and your..." I wanted to throw up as the old memory of the man came back to me. "Master."

That information must have startled him, because one moment he was ready to throw down with me. Ready to ask me every unimportant thing, ask me why my life was ruined, why I knew so much about him. The tinker toy must be winding up hard at the moment as he thought about how any information leaks got out. None of it would matter though. He could speculate until his eyelids were ripped off. As the stillness started to cover us, distantly we could hear the sound of trust making their way toward us.

Steve and I sprung into action and got lower in the bush. We waited, we listened, and when the first truck past us we were booking it. My feet slapped my thighs as I ran. I wasn't running for no reason, I make the knowledge that Kroenen was just behind me the motivation I needed to get to the truck just a moment after Steve was climbing and throwing out soldiers. Once I got inside the back of the truck I noticed we were missing one asshole German. Looking back Kroenen had been able to keep up but his hand had to latch on the truck hatch so he could pull himself to the rim.

"Little help please?" He asked and Steve was the one who came in and pulled the man into the back with us. There was the sound of a clock ticking at a rappid pace and the more I listened to it the more I knew, it wasn't any pocket watch. Kroenen had already removed his heart for that strange clockwork device instead. It was a sound I never forgot, and was something that was both a comfort and a warning at the same time. This man, he was a killer, he would kill many of the people I loved, but he also kept me safe when I was small and didn't know what I was doing.

Sitting in the furthest corner from him I didn't want to look at him. I just wanted to go back to wishing this was a mission to take out Hydra, to get Steve back on his mission to fight Hydra and be the war hero we all know him to be. If this means I have to deal with an insane German doctor, so be it.

Notes: Okay! I'm back! After this first story is done I do plan on going back and correcting everything in the previous chapters, I just know if I do it now, no one is going to get new content and I've waited 3 years too long to do that. Over the next few weeks I'm going to be building up my buffer for this novel and I hope to post a scene a week to every two weeks. It's all going to depend on my families timing since now everyone is out of school which means I get to be more social.

Thank you for everyone who's been sticking around to read this. I am going to do my best to make it worth your while. This includes my take of what the marvel characters are like, like Steve not just being a boy scout but also the face he grew up in a rough town in a rough time period. I Adore Cap and I hope I can give him the character arc he deserves.