A/N* We have officially hit 100 followers! (confetti emoji) :D
Congrats to garlic-bread-rocks who was the 99th follower and Gmlmc who was the 100th!
In celebration of 100 followers, a good friend of mine is working on an original cover for the Eagle!
garlic-bread-rocks: Thank you for your continued commenting and support! I was also very happy to be able to bring Glacier back in but I'm afraid shaky times are headed for these three.
Alexander Pierce stood in front of Aubrey's handler, they were talking quietly with Bucky and Aubrey standing close-by awaiting their mission. The memory had resurfaced not long after she had escaped Hydra but Aubrey had avoided it until now because of it's contents. Her scrambled mind had only caught bits and pieces of their conversation.
"Are you sure you want to eliminate the scientist?" Her handler asked in highly accented English.
She knew the words were changed, the conversation was very different from the original and she quietly marveled at it before focusing again.
"He and his wife need to go, they know too much and they can't have the chance to do something with the information. But we only need to send one of them" Pierce nodded towards the Soldiers, his eyes resting on her longer than needed. Something flashed in them before he turned back to her handler who had started to speak.
"Adler is quieter but they are more efficient together, we know that Meider will have guards and some form of security."
Pierce sighed, contemplating the outcomes before nodding to her handler. The man turned to Eagle and Soldat, his speech coming out in German.
"Adler, Soldat,-" [Eagle, Soldier] "-Du haben ein mission" [You have a mission]
Aubrey frowned slightly but the man's words made the whole thing...easier. He didn't go into detail like the first time and it was left like that. In her peripheral vision, she saw Tony glance at her worriedly.
The scene changed, it skipped over the travel to the mission and jumped to Eagle flying, her body was covered in her black combat suit and her bow shined in her hands. She lowered and landed on the roof of a mansion, it was built of brick with brown trim. Her wings retracted as she crept to the chimney before sliding down part of the roof and climbing down to the edge of a window.
"Status?" She murmured and vaguely Soldat's answer could be heard
"Wachen kümmerten sich um, Drinnen schläft das Haus, Mission ist ein Go." [Guards taken care of, inside, house is asleep, mission is a go]
The words made Eagle's spine stiffen and her green eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight as she tested the old window, it jiggled and opened with ease. Slipping inside she scanned the room for witnesses before closing it. The office room was empty and Eagle was easily able to step into the hallway without trouble. She knew exactly which room her targets were in and approached quietly, notching her bow as her talons slid from her fingernails, she stepped past their children's bedrooms to the door at the end of the hallway. It slid open easily and two sleeping figures lay on a bed. Eagle breathed the stale air deeply, feeling her cowl move with her face as she took aim and shot. The arrow hit the bedpost and the white box changed, showing Eagle and Soldat leaving and the people in the house getting up in the morning. Alive with their children.
Anguish made her chest tight as Aubrey bolted out of her chair, afraid if she gripped it much harder it would snap in two. It hadn't happened like that and she knew it yet it brought a small amount of peace to see the fake scene.
Tony was silent and Aubrey turned to him, expecting to see a judgmental look in his eyes, but what she saw was sympathy and sadness.
"It didn't happen like that...did it" he said so quietly that her super-soldier hearing barely picked it up.
"No" was her terse answer as she paced to the other end of the room with her crutch, putting her bare hands on the cold steel, using the prickling feeling to center herself. Bring her mind back to the present before it got buried beneath the memories begging for her attention. Taking a deep breath she said, just loud enough for him to hear
"The children never saw their parents again. Nor did they stay together at the orphanage." Gulping a breath Aubrey shook her head. It was just more red to add to her increasingly long ledger of wrongs. Tears prickled her eyes as she tried to blink them away, wishing that Tony would just say something. Even if he called her a monster it would be better than the deafening silence.
She sighed heavily, struggling to lock away the weight of the memories back into their dark corner in her mind. Shuddering a breath and sniffling, Aubrey turned back to Tony, finding him watching her with a worried look.
"I'm not mad or disgusted...not at you." he turned and stared at the white box. "I'm mad at them for what they did. But I'm also glad I let Steve go chase that guy, I almost tried to convince him not to"
"Someone should've told me and I would've gone after him. I don't want to be difficult but I know how those guys work and have the training that works against them." Aubrey wrapped her arms around herself as she leaned against the wall, pushing stray hairs out of her face.
"I don't think that crossed anyone's minds because you've still been healing." Tony stood, pushing both chairs back to where he got them before ambling over and motioning them out of the room. "I think we should focus on something else for now, like what you're going to cook your family for dinner?" The lights flickered off after them and Aubrey felt the prickle of dread revisit her again. Something somewhere was going wrong. Tony's phone rang and he jumped slightly, pulling it out of his pocket and answering it. Aubrey's enhanced hearing told her that Captain America was on the other end.
"Tony?" he sounded out of breath and immediately Aubrey's hackles raised.
"What?" Tony's easy-going voice had tensed and he glanced over at her, his eyes widening slowly as Cap started talking.
"Wanda blew up a building, I think the press will be a lot worse than we thought."