"We do this one last thing, and then we disappear," The Winter said softly as her and her brother got in position on the roof. The night provided great protection from any eyes that could be lingering on the two figures, if anyone was to pay attention.
The Soldier laid down and put the sniper gun in place, a long sigh escaping him as he tried to find his target in the building a block away. He understood their plan, though he did not know why his sister was so adamant on leaving HYDRA. He just hoped that this escape plan wasn't in vain, because if they were to get caught, the consequences would be dire.
Breathing through his nose, The Soldier caught sight of his target. The signature leather coat and eye patch gave it away, and the way he was speaking to the Captain gave the assassin a clear view of his back.
"I'm sorry I have to do this," Nick Fury said as he walked closer to Steve Rogers, "But I have no where else to go." He held up a phone, showing Steve a clear message.
SHIELD compromised.
"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asked, playing along with what Nick was saying because he understood the danger behind this situation.
Another text. Just you and me.
"Just my friends," Fury responded before he started to type something else.
"Is that what we are?" Steve asked, his eyebrows furrowing. He didn't know what to think at this point, not wrapping his mind that SHIELD had been compromised.
"That's up to you."
The Winter bit her bottom lip before whispering lowly to her brother, watching as he shot the director three times in the back. She leaned forward and watched as a pretty blonde rushed into the room, helping the director and Captain.
"Let's go," The Soldier said, grabbing the last of his things before grabbing his sisters hand, leading her away from the rooftop. "You said so yourself, we need to disappear."
The ambulance ride to the hospital was a blur for Steve. He couldn't wrap his mind around what Nick had been trying to tell him, he didn't understand how SHIELD could have been compromised. He was still trying to plan out his next moves when he was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts.
"Why was Fury in your apartment?" Natasha asked, her posture stiff was she watched them cover her directors face with a white blanket. He was gone, and she didn't know what to do. "Why were you in your apartment? You haven't been there in weeks."
"I needed a night away from Stark," Steve whispered softly, his eyes flickering over his friend. She looked upset and angry, rightfully so. "I don't know why he was there." He was careful to pick his words because he didn't know if she was someone he could trust now. Just like Fury said, SHIELD had been compromised.
Before she could reply, footsteps echoed through the hallway, walking up to the pair.
"Cap, they want you back at SHIELD," Brock Rumlow said, interrupting their short conversation.
"Yeah, give me a second," Steve replied, not wanting to leave Natasha's side at this point in time. He knew how much Fury meant to the Red Room assassin, and he didn't want her to be alone.
"They want you now."
Steve sighed heavily but gave him a nod in affirmation. He took a few steps away before turning to look at Natasha again, who was already staring at him.
"You're a terrible liar," she said before turning on her heel to walk the other away. She was feeling a lot of different emotions at the moment, but they all centered around how hurt and betrayed she felt.
"Let's go," Steve told Rumlow, walking briskly past him. This was something he would have to deal with later.
Both men entered SHIELD a short drive later, and Steve was immediately taken up a few floors to be questioned about Fury's attack and death.
"Ah, Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce," a new voice said as soon as Steve was brought into a room.
Putting on his best captain face, Steve shook his hand. The room felt tense, and he knew this was something that he would have to take with caution.
"Sir, it's an honor."
"The honor is mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in," Pierce said, letting the Captain enter his office. A single photo caught the eye of Steve, which didn't go unnoticed by Pierce. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, "No, we'll negotiate." Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."
"So you gave him a promotion," Steve said, the sentence almost sounding like a question, but he knew the answer.
"I've never has any cause to regret it," Pierce responded, staring at Steve. A few moments of silence passed between them before he spoke up again. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"
"I don't know," he replied, looking up to meet the gaze of Pierce. It gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, like this man was hiding something.
"You know it was bugged?"
"I did, because Nick told me."
"Did he tell you the one who bugged it?" Pierce quickly asked, only being greeted by silence. That gave him more than enough information. He cleared his throat softly and turned on a monitor, showing Steve a live interrogation that was happening.
Steve immediately recognized the man that was in the room from a previous mission he went on for STRIKE, and it made his body tense up more so than what it was.
"Is that Batroc?"
" Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers," Pierce said, his eyes trained on the monitor as he watched.
" Are you saying he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line," Steve said, moving his gaze back to Pierce. He didn't understand where he was going with this. If he already had it figured out, why was he here?
" No, it's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."
Steve blinked at the name. " Am I supposed to know who that is?" he asked as a file was being handed to him.
" Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick his mother lived at 14-37."
"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?"
"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death," Pierce said, watching the Captain s facials to gauge some sort of reaction from him. He, of course, knew what had happened pertaining to his "friend".
"If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true," Steve said, getting defensive on his old directors behalf.
"Why do you think we're talking? See, I took a seat on the Council, not because I wanted to, but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry," Pierce paused in his speech and sighed heavily. "Captain, you were the last one to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"
"He told me not to trust anyone."
"I wonder if that included him."
Steve paused and took a moment to recollect his thoughts. Something was wrong with this converastion, with Pierce. He couldn't trust him.
"I'm sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse me," he said softly as he grabbed his shield, walking out of the office.
"Captain," Pierce said, making the other man stop to listen, "Someone murdered my friend, and I'm going to find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they'll regret it. Anyone."
"Understood," Steve said stiffly before taking his exit.
Pierce stared at the closing door, a grin forming on his face. This was exactly what he wanted.
"Get him," he ordered Rumlow and his agents.
Rumlow nodded once and started to make his way to the elevator where Steve had taken off.
"Cap," he greeted as he entered the elevator before it closed, two agents following closely behind him.
"Rumlow," Steve greeted, his hands placed in front of his body as they told the elevator where they would like to go.
"Evidence Response found some fibres on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac-team ready?" Rumlow said, attempting to make small talk to make the Captain more at ease.
" No, lets wait and see what it is first," Steve responded, watching as Rumlow gave him a curt nod. His eyes trailed over the other agents, and he caught on of them touching their weapon suspiciously.
" I'm sorry about what happened with Fury," Rumlow said as a few more agents piled into the elevator, "Messed up, what happened to him."
"Thank you," Steve muttered in responded, getting uncomfortable in this elevator. Another agent got in the elevator, and that was when he realized what was going on.
He was surrounded.
"Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"
Silence.
After a moments pause, one of the agents suddenly turns and attempts to use an electric rod on Steve. Other agents tried to grab him and strap his wrists with their magnetic cuffs. Steve manages to knock some of them away, but one of the cuff manages to attach to his wrist. Rumlow uses his own rod to give Steve a painful shock.
"Whoa, big guy. I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal," Rumlow said as he dodges an attack from the Captain.
"It kind of feels personal," Steve says as he picked up his shield before forcing the elevator doors open. Hes greeted by a team of STRIKE and SHIELD agents, who were all pointing their weapons at him.
"Give it up Rogers! You have nowhere to go," an agent calls, causing Steve to quickly close the elevator doors.
He looked around, trying to think of any escape plans to get him out of here. An idea popped in his head as he stared out the window of the elevator, and he tensed his body up. He muttered under his breath before throwing his body against the glass, his body plummeting down to the ground.
Hours later, and Steve found himself in front of an abandoned military base in New Jersey with Natasha by his side. As of right now, she was the only one he could trust. Whatever STRIKE has been hiding was about the Barnes twins, he knew it. The signal they had traced from the flash drive Fury gave him led them to this place, somewhere he used to train at before he turned into the super-soldier he is today.
"This is a dead end. Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off," Natasha said as she walked around, her eyebrows furrowed in thought.
Steve glanced around, memories hounding his brain, when he noticed something wrong.
"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place," he said, leading Natasha to the locked door. Using his shield, he broke the lock and opened the heavy doors, revealing what appeared to be an old SHIELD base.
The two Avengers walked slowly around the office, taking in the old pictures that were hanging up on the wall, and trying to find any information as to why they were lead here. Steve blinked and walked up to a massive bookcase that seemed out of place.
"If you're already working in a secret office," he muttered, using his super strength to push the bookshelf to the side, "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"
They took the elevator down, their bodies and minds on edge for anything that could appear once the doors open. When they entered a room with old technology and computers, Natasha huffed in annoyance.
"This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient," she said, looking around to find anything that seemed like it would help. She noticed a flash drive point, and she immediately walked forward to insert the flash drive, which activates the computers.
"Initiate system?" A voice called out, causing Natasha to smile widely.
"Y-E-S, spells yes," she said to herself happily. She glanced up at Steve and grinned, "Shall we play a game?" she asked in a playful voice, "It's from a movie that..."
"Yeah, I saw it," Steve said, cracking a small smile.
"Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 198," an accented voice called out, causing both of them to tense up. They could see an old camera moving above them as if it was analyzing them.
"It's some kind of a recording," Natasha said, trying to calm down Steve who seemed to be more on edge after hearing that voice.
" I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am," the voice responded as a face appeared on the computer screen. Steve narrowed his eyes when he saw who it was.
"Do you know this thing?" She asked, glancing over at Steve who seemed to be glaring at the computer.
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull," Steve responded, confused as to how this scientist seemed to still be alive, "He's been dead for years."
"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain," Zola said, correcting the Captain.
"How did you get here?" Steve said, getting angrier by them moment. His friends were in danger, and it seemed as if this computer was just playing a game with them. He had not time to entertain, he had to rescue Bucky and Lillian, and take care of STRIKE.
"Invited."
"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II," Natasha said when she noticed that Steve wasn't following, "SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value."
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own," Zola cut in, his voice menacing. He pulled up old footage of HYDRA and Red Skull, and footage of the old SHIELD. "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."
Natasha felt her jaw clench as the footage was shown to them, and she was getting angry like Steve was.
"That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you," she said, shaking her head.
"Accidents will happen," Zola said as the computer screen showed HYDRA killing Howard and Maria Stark, making it look like a regular car accident, as well as footage of Fury dying. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your Life; a zero sum-"
Steve couldn't handle this anymore, and soon his anger took over. He smashed the computer screen with his fist, which caused Natasha to flinch away since she didn't expect it.
"As I was saying..." Zola said as he appeared on another computer screen.
"What's on this drive?" Steve asked, his body staring to feel uncomfortably warm with all the anger coursing through his veins.
"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm," Zola responded, not caring about giving any sort of information out.
"What kind of algorithm?" Natasha asked as she crossed her arms, "What does it do?"
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it," Zola said as the doors slammed shut. Steve attempted to throw his shield to stop the doors, but it was no no avail.
"Steve, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops," Natasha said, looking at Steve with worry in her hardened gaze.
"Who fired it?"
"SHIELD."
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both of us...out of time," Zola said, his face disappearing off the computer screen.
Steve notices a small opening on the ground, and he quickly threw the metal doors to the side. Just as the place explodes, he throws Natasha and then himself in the hold, and uses his shield as protection. Rubble of concrete fall on top of them, causing the shield to becoming heavy. Many moments passed, and soon the layer of dust became too much. Steve very slowly pushed on his shield to knock the concrete off, and he looked around. He was in pain from the fall damage, but when he looked down at an unconscious Natasha, he pushed his own pain away to carry her safely away.
He gently placed her in the backseat of the burrowed car and drove off as quick as he could before the incoming STRIKE members noticed the retreating car. His whole body was trembling, from anger, exhaustion, and pain. He couldn't believe the amount of betrayal and lies that had unknowingly encompassed his life.
A heavy sigh escaped him and he ran a hand through his dirty hair. This just made everything much more complicated for him, and he knew getting Bucky and Lillian back was going to be much more difficult.
A small groan came from the back of the car an hour later, and he forced himself away from his thoughts to look back, watching as Natasha woke up.
"Where are we going?" she asked quietly when she realized she was in a moving car.
"To someone I trust," he said softly, turning a corner into a nice neighborhood.
Natasha furrowed her eyebrows as Steve turned off the car and got out, but she quickly got out and followed after him. They walked a few blocks from where he had parked before Steve approached a house, knocking impatiently.
"Hey man," Sam Wilson said as the door opened, looking between the two dirty Avengers.
"I'm sorry about this. We need a place to stay low."
""Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha added, which made Sam raise an eyebrow. A second of silence passed between them before Sam opened the door more.
"Not everyone," he said, letting them inside. He quickly looked around the street as they entered to make sure no one was following them before he closed and locked the door.
"Are you sure we will be safe?" The Soldier asked his sister as they entered an abandoned apartment building that seemed to be crumbling.
They had been on the run nonstop since the assassination of Director Fury in hopes to escape HYDRA and the dictatorship of Pierce. Currently, they were states away, tired from the endless nights.
"I will make sure you stay safe," The Winter replied, choosing her words carefully. She had kept up with the news, and she knew that Captain was now a wanted criminal, which made her assume that HYDRA knew that the two assassins have fled.
"That is not what I asked," he said, grabbing her arm gently and forcing her to look at him. He knew that something was not right, and that she was hiding something from him.
"I know, but that is how I chose to answer," she whispered, giving him a small smile. She reached up and traced his cheek softly before sighing, "I promise to explain everything later on. Just go to sleep. I know how much of a принцесса (princess) you become when you are tired."
The Soldier managed to crack a small smile and rolled his eyes before pressing a small kiss upon her forehead.
"Of course, sister," he murmured, pulling himself away to fall onto the dirty, old mattress on the floor. "Wake me up soon so you can sleep next."
The Winter hummed in reply and looked out the window briefly before closing the blinds, darkness once again falling upon the twins.
Unedited.
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