*DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS (ASIDE FROM MY OCS), OR STORYLINES DERIVED FROM MARVEL COMICS/MCU, ETC.
— I write my OC with Jessica Lucas in mind
(WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, AND SEXUAL SITUATIONS.
THIS STORY OFTEN MENTIONS AND RECALLS THE HEINOUS ACTIONS BROUGHT ABOUT BY ADOLF HITLER. ALTHOUGH THIS IS A FICTIONAL STORY, THE HOLOCAUST AND OTHER SEVERE DISCRIMINATION OF MINORITIES IN GERMANY AND OTHER NAZI-INVADED REGIONS BEFORE, DURING, AND EVEN AFTER ADOLF HITLER'S TIME WAS VERY REAL.)
*This chapter has been revised as of May.19.21.
PROLOGUE: THE GREAT BIG BAD
BERLIN, GERMANY...1938
The train station is packed out as Ibrahim and I rush to the train as fast as we can before it has time to depart.
There's a sea of minorities, a majority of them certainly Jewish.
It's loud with children crying, babies screaming, and drained and exhausted parents reassuring their families as they lead them to the train, knowing they won't see them again.
I know I'm fortunate enough not to be hunted to the extent they are, their mass extinction a priority to him, but since the Guesope are targeting anything deemed as impure to Germany's conservation of purity, we are clearly on his radar.
"Do you have your ticket?" Ibrahim asks me as we get closer.
"Yes, do you?" I reply.
He doesn't answer, something I don't think to take note of, until I'm boarding.
And he isn't.
"Ibrahim, come on." I tell him as I'm being urged to move out of the way.
He looks at me, solemn, but trying to smile. "Ibrahim!" I snap harshly and he looks at me with tears in his eyes.
He never got a ticket, because he isn't coming with me.
I'm stunned, unable to speak or even fight back when I'm ushered out of the way and into a train cart to be seated, noisy with sobbing children with their scared guardians, most definitely the result of parents not having the money to come with them.
The weight of what's happening starts to set in.
Those around me are beginning to wave outside of the window to their families, and I look to my right, trying to find my husband in the crowd.
It should be easy, given his height, build, and significantly darker skin to the majority in the station, but I can't see him.
Fueled by the cries around me and anxious tension that I can cut in the air with a knife, I make my mind up.
The train starts slowly, and I shake my head, my heart beginning to hound in my chest at the thought of having to do this all without him, not knowing if he's alright, I quickly step to the attendant.
"I need to get off." I tell him.
"Ma'am, we cannot stop the train." He replies calmly.
"I need to get off of the train." I repeat myself, more stern.
"We cannot stop the train." He says once again.
I stare at him for a couple of seconds before I turn on my heel and head down the aisle.
"Ma'am, you cannot—"
The sound of me opening the door to the other half of the car cuts him short.
"Ma'am!" He chases after me as passengers stare while I get to the door of the end of the car, opening it, being hit with the crisp air of the winter snow.
We've gained speed, but not enough that I'll be hurt if I jump.
"Ma'am!" is the last thing I hear when I squeeze myself between the two train cars, my feet standing on the hitch between the two of them.
His hand reaches out to grab me and pull me back in, but he misses me by merely centimeters by the time I jump.
I hit the ground, feeling a pop in my mouth, the inside of my cheek in a sharp pain.
I bit my cheek when I hit the ground, but I don't give myself time to cry about it for long, coming to my feet quickly, running as fast as I can up the track, back through the station.
Those who watched me abandon possibly my only chance at freedom, look questioningly at me as I force through them, trying to find Ibrahim.
"Ibrahim!" I shout, frantically looking around.
I see part of the crowd move—more so get pushed—out of the way—before I realize he's quickly making his way to me.
I go to him, seeing that he's crying, and I know he's angry, but doesn't say a word to me when he reaches me, embracing me tightly, sobbing.
"I'm so sorry, Ibrahim, I couldn't go." I cry to him, shaking my head, pulling back to hold his face in my hands, my thumbs getting wet with his tears.
I've never seen him cry before, although given the circumstances I suppose he has every reason to.
"I couldn't go, I couldn't go." I shake my head.
"I told you to go." He says shakily, angrily.
"I couldn't go." I repeat as his thumbs wipe under my eyes, smearing my own tears across my cheek.
FOUR YEARS LATER
"...This is not something that I am giving my time and energy to think about, right now, Ibrahim." I state, putting our leftover supper into a bowl for later before turning to look at him, crossing my arms and raising a brow, pointedly.
"We need to give our time and energy to this because it's no longer a possibility, Katrina, it is inevitable." He tells me. "There are people who don't even get the opportunity or the time to try to think about it. They're being taken away from their homes and loved ones and shipped off to camps too quickly to even imagine having an escape plan." He adds sternly, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen.
"We are not them." I tell him.
"Why do you think I tried to send you away?" He asks and I exhale and prepare for yet another fight about this. "They're not coming after us the way they are the Jews, but sterilizations are happening everywhere, they're sending us off to euthenasia clinics, some are conveniently 'disappearing' although I'm sure that just means they're getting sent off to God knows where and being burned alive or gassed like the Jews, and I could see it getting this bad all those years ago but you just kept turning a blind eye and turning a blind eye and now it's too damn late to run off somewhere for refuge." He reminds me.
"I know it is, Ibrahim, I know." I reply. "But I didn't go because you weren't going. And when I married you I vowed for better or for worse, and I meant that to be taken as by your side, wherever it is that you are."
"And I vowed to love you and protect you, and that's exactly what I was doing when I put you on that train."
"After you told me you were coming with me and then threw me on by myself." I correct him.
"The chance of not getting turned away for refuge was smaller with there just being one person seeking it…" He quits speaking, his eyes over my shoulder, and I turn to see what he's looking at.
"What are you doing out of bed?" He asks four year old Niko, stepping to him as the curly headed little boy clings to a stained quilted blanket he's had since birth.
"You woke me up." He says sleepily, rubbing his golden brown eyes.
"We didn't mean to wake you." Ibrahim tells him, his tall stature bending down to see eye level with the child.
"Go back to bed, Niko, I'll be in there in just a little bit to sing to you." I assure him softly.
"Come on," his father guides him back down the hall to his room.
Once he reappears in the doorway after a moment, I rub my forehead and let out a defeated breath.
"I would've given birth alone, Ibrahim. I would've lost him." I state sharply.
"You nearly did." He reminds me. "And it's a miracle you were able to, being as so many like you have been arrested, their unborn aborted, and sterilized. Which is exactly why I wanted you to leave here."
"I got on that train not even knowing I was pregnant. Had I gone, he wouldn't have been here. I stayed. And I'm not sorry that I stayed. And I wish you weren't sorry, either."
"I'm not sorry." He denies it. "I just wanted you to be safe."
"I'm safe." I argue. "For now, at least."
"We're living in fear, Katrina. Raising our son in fear. We are not safe. You are not safe. He is not safe." He says sternly.
"Well, when someone figures out time travel, I'll be sure to go back and stay on the bloody train." I push past him, heading to Niko's room.
The little tea candle burning up on the shelf is beginning to dim as he fights his sleep, his eyes struggling to stay open.
"You do not need to fight rest." I tell him, scooting into the bed with him, closing my eyes with comfort when he snuggles closer into me as I gently pull at one of his tightly coiled strands of hair to see it bounce back into place.
"I was waiting for you." He tells me quietly.
"I was waiting for you, too." I reply, kissing his forehead.
"Good evening, good night, With roses covered, With cloves adorned, Slip under the covers. Tomorrow morning, if God wills, you will wake once again," he sings in little slurs from how tired he is, and it brings a smile to my face, my arm tightening around him, picking up where he left off.
"Good evening, good night. By angels watched, Who show you in your dream the Christ-child's tree. Sleep now blissfully and sweetly, see paradise in your dreams." I press another kiss to his head, and opt to stay in here and hold him for a few minutes longer.
I end up falling asleep, being awoke by Ibrahim gently shaking me awake.
"Katrina, come to bed." He tells me in a whisper and I sit up, careful not to wake Niko before taking Ibrahim's hand and he picks me up and carries me to our bedroom.
"Even if I could go back, I still would have gotten off that train." I say in a hushed voice, taking back what I said earlier, and he stops, looking at me.
"I know." He says as I run the back of my fingers along the smooth skin of his cheek.
Neither of us speak a word more before I'm leaning up, and he's meeting my lips with his before stepping into our room and closing the door with his foot.
SIX MONTHS LATER
"Mrs. Aneke, it is with the greatest displeasure and regret to inform you that your husband, Ibrahim Aneke, was declared dead this morning at 0600. The result of suicide by hanging." The German officer informs me, not a moment after I answer the door…
"...The woman who accused him of molesting her has confessed she was untruthful in regards to the matter." He adds.
I knew this was coming.
I've already prepared myself and Niko for the reality that his father was stolen away from us on a false accusation, and murdered for it.
Of course the police will not admit to that.
I just stare at him, his green uniform causing a sick feeling to rise within my throat.
He turns to go, and I know I should bite my tongue, but I can't bring myself to do so.
"Will I be getting his ashes back, or can they not sort his out from the rest?"
He stops in his tracks, slowly turning to look at me.
"I have a feeling we will cross paths once again soon, Mrs. Aneke." He states, an unsettling terror pits into my gut.
He confirms my suspicions, even after he just turns back and keeps walking to his car.
BERLIN, GERMANY — ORDNUNGSPOLIZEI HAUPTAMT...1943
The pinch of cold metal tightly cinched around my wrists makes my lip curl distastefully as I catch a look at myself in the reflection of blacked out shades that look down at me where I'm seated behind bars.
A hand cloaked in a luxury black leather glove comes up to take the glasses from his eyes, the mere intimidation in his stare makes me squirm.
"...Her husband, an African barbarian charged with the rape of one of our righteous women, cowardly hung himself whilst awaiting conviction. Once she was notified she lost her wits. Although, I am not sure she had many to begin with. We are learning more and more that these Rhineland Bastards are not adequate enough to grasp the simplest of concepts. A gene fault passed from their fathers, surely." An officer explains to him. "Her son was taken not long afterwards due to her mental instability, which, as you can see, is prolific."
"I can see that." He frowns at me.
"We were going to send her into a clinic, but then we received direct orders from the Fuhrer himself to take her off. He wishes for her to burn much like she tried to do to our police force when she doused the perimeter in petrol with the intent to set fire to it."
I can see the stranger hide an amused pull of his lips, which appears to be a menacing grin in hiding, only adding to the feeling of impending doom that's gotten its boot on my neck.
"Did you now?" He asks cynically, his eyes darting around my face as if searching for something.
"We cannot disobey orders." The officer adds.
"Of course not." He agrees, hands going behind his back… "Is there, perhaps, any way that I may be of service in this instance? To save you the trip to the trains?" He offers.
"That won't be necessary, Schmidt, I'd very well get the satisfaction of driving her there myself."
"You may accompany us." This Schmidt offers, giving him permission to come as if he is the one who arrested me and insists on my death. "There is plenty of room. You will find my car rides quite comfortably."
The officer looks skeptical for a moment, but doesn't waste too much time.
"Ah, very well, then. What harm could it do?"
Blood dampens the snow at Schmidt's expensive black boots, the sharp contrast of black and red and white reminding me of a game of checkers, my chest heaving with breath at what just occurred.
He grabs the pair of keys to my chains from the dead man's pocket, his steps crunching onto the frozen ground as he walks back to the sleek black car, and gets in.
"It could, indeed, do harm after all." He comments, glaring at the body.
It could, indeed, do harm after all.
"You will see it as fate having mercy on you by aligning my dessertion of the Führer in time with your scheduled cremation. I believe you are not your father but the likes of your mother therefor I will show no mercy in the ways you are conditioned. In the mornings your mind will be transformed through the teachings and practical assistance of Dr. Arnim Zola."
"Little pinch," I mumble to the already disoriented test subject, inserting his IV sedation as Arnim observes.
"And why is it that the serum fails in some?" He randomly asks me as he looks over his glasses at the vile of blue liquid.
"Many believe that because it taps into the cells and forces DNA to communicate differently to RNA in order to code the protein necessary to create a super soldier that a successful outcome relies solely on the proteins being transformed themselves." I reply. "But those proteins have a half-life, and would eventually be depleted from the body once the proteins carrying it have run their course."
"So, that would mean what, exactly?"
"The genes themselves must be altered in preparation, even at the slightest capacity, in order to thoroughly carry out the physical and mental transformation required for the serum to be regarded as successful."
"And will that guarantee success?"
"No, it also depends on whether the person's body rejects it or not."
"Very good, Ms. Kraus."
"In the afternoons your body will be transformed under my mentorship."
Several shots of gunfire echo off the walls of the large warehouse within the headquarters, lined with guards in head to toe, black armor.
Green uniforms hit the icey cement, single bullet holes drilled into skulls yet are filled with two bullets each.
"Again." Johann orders and I look at him hesitantly. "You expect me to send you after the Führer yet you whimper like a little girl each time you shoot one of his men? These same men who stripped your beloved away and strung him up...pulled your son from your arms and turned him into smoke in Ausch—"
More shots, a few more bodies thudding as they hit the floor, the clinking of a bloodied bullet slipping from one and onto the cement follows, and I look at him, his red skull on display, no longer hiding who and what he is now that he's turned his back on the hand that was feeding him.
"You have been spared to help carry on the legacy and purpose of that which HYDRA bares so proudly, and you will eliminate those who wish to destroy it. No hesitation, no fear. We do not cowar. We do not hide away. We proudly stand up to take the strikes of our opponents and when we strike back we make it known that they should have hit us harder the first time."
WASHINGTON D.C...2014
Tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..
I glance at the clock on the wall of my office, the lights off the city street below me illuminating the room being that now other lights are on, not even my desk lamp as I scribble through paper work in an attempt to hurry up and get home.
I close one file just to open another, letting out a sharp breath as I pinch the bridge of my nose before standing up to walk to the filing cabinet near the door, opening the top drawer.
"It was successful." I nearly have a heart attack when I close the drawer and turn to see Agent Rumlow, leaning against the filing cabinet. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." He says honestly, grinning down at me and I sigh out and head back to my desk.
"The hit on Fury." He says next.
"What?"
"The hit on Fury was successful." He repeats.
"I knew it would be." I state, getting the work on my desk in order.
"You wanna celebrate?" He asks me.
"No, I've got work to do." I say without even looking at him.
"Oh, c'mon, Trina, that work won't even matter in a few days." He states, scoffing, stepping closer to my desk.
"It matters now, so I'm doing it now." I argue flatly.
He doesn't say anything back immediately, he just stares at me, so much so that its not hard to piece together what he's thinking.
"I've always admired your drive." He comments lowly, stepping behind me where I'm seated, his hands draping my shoulders, rubbing them for a moment before pulling my hair to one shoulder.
"I don't know how to drive." I state, brushing him off, keeping my eyes on my work.
"I meant," he chuckles a little, "your work ethic."
"What about it?" I question him.
"Okay, you're bullshitting me." He comes to the conclusion.
"If you didn't say stupid things, you wouldn't get stupid responses." I tell him as I shrug his hands away.
"I didn't say anything stupid. I just said I admire how you never half-ass do anything." He tells me, coming to stand in front of the desk, crossing his arms.
"No, I don't." I stand back up to file a few documents.
"Including your little thing you got with him." He continues and I stop for a second before opening the drawer, and filing the papers.
"It's not a little thing, Agent Rumlow. It's actually quite major." I slam the drawer shut and turn to look at him.
"I'm well aware." He raises his brows, starting to walk to me. "I've heard a little wisp of a rumor, I'm sure there's no truth to it, really," he goes on, "that they made you step down because you were about to cut and run and take him with you."
I have to bare down on my tongue for a second before replying, "vicious rumor."
"Gotta be if it came from Pierce directly." He says and I feel a lump begin to clump into my throat. "Then I did some digging..." he adds, coming closer. "...Some untitled medical files and exams on subject BE-5213 and subject SI-6199."
"Fascinating." I sarcastically let out, despite beginning to feel my nerves jumble up.
I didn't know they held onto the files documenting those events.
"One of which was only alive for a duration of twenty-one days." He says next and I keep my face neutral.
"You got knocked up." He adds lowly, raising his brows, a sick, proud smile on his face at the fact that he figured it out. "Did you plot your escape with him before or after you found out about the little ankle biter?"
I don't answer.
"Doesn't matter, really, does it?" He's uncomfortably close at this point, his hand pushing strands of hair away from framing my face. "You can play innocent. Sell that 'I fell in love with him and had a few lapses in judgement' bullshit that everyone around us seems to buy because of who you are. But I've figured you out. Took years, but I got it. It was never a lapse in judgment. You always knew exactly what you were doing. Always two steps in front of them. You had it planned from the first day you took over the program all those years ago. Boiling HYDRA like a frog for nearly twenty years, taking advantage of what they'd done for you...at the end of the day you wanted to gut us and run off to play house with our most lethal weapon."
"He's not a weapon." I speak steadily, my tone challenging—daring—him to argue.
He doesn't say anything back right away, searching my face for a telltale that he's got me where he wants me.
But I highly doubt that.
"I've got my eyes on you, Katrina. If I even feel like you're going to pull that shit you tried to pull in '09..." he keeps his voice low as he trails off, and I see someone standing down the hall, seeing us.
"You're not the only one with eyes on me." I reply and he slowly looks to his right before looking down at me again, dropping his hand from my hair as he backs up a few steps.
"Sleep tight, Agent Rumlow." I say as my company gets to the doorway and he gives us a glare as James comes closer to me, his eyes smeared in black, contrasting against his piercing blue hues.
"You too, Agent Kraus." Brock replies with a fake smile to avoid any possible chances to rub James the wrong way, although I know that he has just based off the blatant defense practically rolling into the air, off of the soldier like waves.
I'm following him to the door before I shut it, and lock it, turning and leaning against it as I face James.
NEW JERSEY...TWO DAYS LATER
The only sound in the secret headquarters is that of my heels as I slowly glance around at the abandoned building, the flashlight on my phone guiding my path, falling along the wall lined with important members of S.H.I.E.L.D., reaping guilt at the site of Howard Stark.
There wasn't a choice, I want to tell him. But I keep my mouth shut, deciding it'd be blasphemous to attempt to justify anything HYDRA has done aside from plot against Adolf Hitler.
It takes me a few minutes to gather the strength to move the bookcase out of the way in order to get to the elevator, and I struggle to push it back in place but manage to before I step to the elevator and activate the keypad before heading to the basement to wait for my expected company.
I'm cautiously stepping into the room once the door opens, the lights slowly sensoring on with each step, revealing a large computer and extensive data base.
Very extensive.
"So, it's true." I say to myself stepping down the aisle, stopping right in front of the monitor, staring at it...staring right up to the docile camera.
I won't bite my tongue to him like I did with Howard.
"I admired you." I say shakily. "I admired you, I admired your mind, I admired your intelligence, I assisted you in any way that I could and you kept me in the dark then turned on me and cursed me." I shake my head a little. "You sold me damnation wrapped up like some extraordinary gift by mentally and emotionally shackling me to the one person capable of killing me." I add.
I can hear his Swiss accent in my mind, scolding me for being ungrateful.
I'm not going to argue with a dead-man-turned-computer.
I continue staring at the monitor, for what feels like hours but also merely seconds all at once, the lights even cutting back off after i e been still enough.
That is until I hear the door of the elevator opening.
Unable to bring myself to look at them, my eyes still on the monitor and camera as the lights come back on, and I turn to look at them.
"Don't worry, I'm not double-agenting anymore." I assure them, already knowing what they're thinking.
"The hell are you doing here?" Steve asks me, he and Natasha both looking confused.
"The same reason you're here." I explain.
"'This isn't my fight. I just work in HR'." He quotes what I've said multiple times over the past years while working for S.H.I.E.L.D.
"I do work in HR." I argue. "Which is why it is my fight."
"What is this, Katrina?" He questions and Nat looks around.
"Whatever it is can't be the data point. This technology is ancient." She tells us, before her eyes soon settle on a modern flashdrive plug, hooked into the computer system, before hesitantly taking the drive from her pocket and pushing it into one of the outlets.
Soon the system starts up, all the monitor lights on each storage unit blinking as they start dialing up, the three of us watching them momentarily until the camera shifts in our direction, and green letters come across the screen, matched with a muffled voice that reads the words allowed.
"Initiate System?" It says and Nat looks at us before stepping forward.
"Y-E-S spells 'yes'." She says to herself, hitting 'Enter' on the keyboard after typing it.
She waits a moment as it prepares before she adds, "'Shall we play a game'?", glancing back at Steve to elaborate, "it's a quote from a really popular mov—"
"—I know. I saw it." He tells her and she just smiles a little at him.
I keep my eyes on the camera as it moves to Steve, the screen pixelating green before it gathers to form the electronic face of one Arnim Zola. Glasses and all.
My nails bite into my palms.
"Rodgers, Steven. Born 1918." He says over the speaker, quickly catching their attention before shifting to Nat. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984." It then comes to me, a particular menace in his voice as he states, "Kraus-Aneke, Katrina. Born 1920."
Steven seems to be the only one surprised by this revelation, which I wasn't expecting Natasha to be thrown off.
She's used to being lied to by now.
People have to be prepared for it when in the line of work we're in.
"It's some kind of recording." She tells us, trying to piece together exactly what the hell this is and how it relates to anything happening at S.H.I.E.L.D.
"I am not a recording, Fraulein." Zola corrects her. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am…" the smaller screen next to the monitor shows a picture of Arnim, and Nat looks at Steve.
"You know this man?" She asks him.
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." He informs her, stepping around the monitor, glancing around the room once again. "He's been dead for years."
"First correction, I am Swiss." Zola snaps. "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 200,000 feet of data banks." He explains as Steve comes back around to stand next to us. "You see, Kraus, when someone offers you a loophole of survival, you take it with no complaining." He scolds me and I glare at him and look at Steven as he gives me a look of disappointment.
"What exactly do you mean 'offered,' how did you get here?" He asks Zola next.
"Invited." He replies smugly, this is something Natasha knows about.
"It was operation Paper Clip after World War II. S.H.I.E.L.D recruited German scientists with strategic value." She explains to him.
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own." Arnim adds.
"HYDRA died with the Red Skull." Steve confidently argues.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." He flashes the HYDRA symbol on the screen before his own face multiplies in two for a moment.
"Prove it." Steve tells him.
I look up at him, dreading what's about to be brought to his knowledge.
"Accessing Archive." Zola says, a few more smaller monitors coming on, flashes of old files, old news clippings, old videos show. "HYDRA was created with the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its on freedom." He starts, a video of Johann Schmidt on the screen for a moment, making my blood nearly freeze before the picture changes to HYDRA soldiers with both arms up in a salute. "What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist." Next is an image of an old propaganda poster of Johann as the Red Skull himself, the words, "we will follow, heil hydra," on it. Then a clip of video of Steve as Captain America in the wake of a battle, shows. "The war taught us much." Zola continues. "Humanity needed to surrender it's freedom willingly. After the war S.H.I.E.L.D was founded," we see a photo of Howard Stark and Peggy Carter before it goes to a shot of Arnim's file, his eyes in the picture as though he's staring into my soul, "and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew." A group photo of S.H.I.E.L.D employees shows Zola in the background before it changes to a candid of him working. "A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D."
I can see the horror on Natasha's face, all of this making a little too much sense to the both of them.
"For 70 years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate," my heart sinks to my stomach when I see that familiar red star on a piece of metal, before he shows us a black and white image of a particular sniper on a building, zooming in briefly to see it's the Winter Soldier, "history was changed."
"That's impossible. S.H.I.E.L.D would have stopped you." Nat argues defensively.
"Accidents will happen." He tells us, showing the article on Howard and Maria Stark's "car accident," and I feel nauseous, just before a black and white picture of Nick Fury shows, DECEASED stamped over it. "To answer to your accusations, double-agent Kraus, we did not have to sell you anything. You sealed your fate when you sold your soul for protection. You helped HYDRA create a world so chaotic that, much like yourself, humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain security." He keeps on and Steve and Nat snap their attention to me swiftly, wide eyed and angry. "Once the purification process is complete, HYDRAs new world order will arise." He assures us before a news paper clip of Steve's previous disappearance is on the monitor. "Your death amounts to the same as your life." He tells Captain America, and I see the amount of tension he has in his jaw attempting to hold himself back from the computer. "A zero sum."
This does it.
Steve punches the large monitor, completely shattering it, cutting it's power off in the process.
He just reappears on a smaller monitor.
"As I was saying…"
"What's on this drive?" Steve demands.
"Project insight requires insight, so I wrote an algorithm." Zola responds.
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Nat asks next, quickly.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."
Steel doors begin to shut over the elevator doors and Steve throws his shield at them to try to stop them but they're too strong and send the shield right back to him.
"Steve, we got a bogey." Nat tells him while looking at her phone. "Short range ballistic, 30 seconds max." She adds.
"Who fired?" He asks her, the sudden suffocating feeling of eminent death permeating the room.
"S.H.I.E.L.D." I say it just as she does and he looks at a loss.
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain." Arnim says next as Nat pulls the drive from the plug in. "Admit it. It's better this way."
Steve looks around for somewhere to get down for cover, before his eyes go to the grate in the floor, pulling the covering off of it, exposing a six foot drop. "We are, both of us," Steve grabs Nat, "out of time." Is the last thing Zola says before the three of us rush to the hole, barely making it as the blast catches us just as we fall into it, the impact forcing us down harder than we would have gone had we been here when it hit.
Steve covers Nat with his S.H.I.E.L.D, his hand tugging me as close to them as I can be.
I'm not particularly worried about myself, my lack of fragility to death is a complicatededly intricate work that even I don't understand fully.
Even with debris and chunks of building falling down over us, my only uneasiness about this entire predicament is that they'll find out I'm here with Steven and Natasha, and they'll send him to hunt me down.
WASHINGTON D.C.
I take in deep breaths as I drag the wet rag across my face to wipe away the soot from the explosion, repeating the action until it's gone completely before I start trying to comb through my tangled hair with my fingers.
My eyes start watering when my fingers keep snagging on knots, years and years and decades and decades of built up anger and frustration boiling over in this very moment, disguised as a meltdown over hair.
I'm terrified.
A feeling I honestly haven't felt in years...
My mind drifts back to the last time I was this scared.
"He looks strong."
I hear the muffled Russian language despite being asleep, unable to feel a thing except pressure in my abdomen.
"Perhaps we made the right decision." Another says.
I know what they're doing. Ogling over a blessing that they will curse as soon as they find a way to exploit him.
Him.
It's a boy.
Why isn't he crying?
I try to force my mouth to form those very words to them, unable to due to my brain lagging in it's function at the moment.
Then I hear it...wailing cries. Strong cries.
"Go clean him up. We will take a blood sample once we are finished with her." The first doctor states and I try with everything in me to open my eyes.
I do, just slightly, seeing the bright light over my head, the very blurry, fuzzy outline of people standing over me in surgery gowns.
I try to speak, I try to ask where my baby is, but I can't get the words out, as if my tongue is numb.
Someone catches this, because the next thing that's said is:
"We need a little more anesthesia."
A few more huffs into my gas mask, the last thing I hear, being, "If only you had behaved."
The next few weeks flash across my memory in a dreadful dance.
Giving every single one of them as much hell as possible in an attempt to break them down and just let me hold what they took from me. Taking the stitches and staples out of my c-section wound, twice, just to inconvenience them with sewing it back up. Continuously trying to get to the Cryofreeze sector to get him off ice and tell him what they've done to me. All of this while screaming, "where is my baby?!" until my voice disappeared for a couple days, then I'd start all over again, and would persist until I was given what I wanted.
"We have a peace offering." Is what I had been told. I should've known better, but I was hopelessly hopeful, and desperate.
I'd take whatever crumb, no matter how big of a lie, was thrown my way at that point.
I'd been running around in circles for seventy years.
My entire body shakes in relief and anticipation once the swaddle of blankets appears in one of the nurse's arms, his little socked feet sticking out.
I take him from her as soon as she hands him to me, kissing his hair, hugging him to me, closing my eyes and taking in his perfect smell, already stamping a mental contract holding myself responsible for him completely, signing off that I'll never let anything bad happen to him.
My mental pledge to his protection is interrupted by something that doesn't quite smell right from him.
The skin of his head against my lips is colder than it should be, more so lukewarm.
I furrow my brows, looking directly into his sleeping face, a bluish hue to his skin.
"Something's wrong." I say to myself, hurriedly attempting to unravel him from his blankets, afraid it's suffocating him.
I come to the horrific conclusion that it's irreparable when the nurse calmly tells me, "He fell asleep during the night and never woke up."
She takes him.
It's as if my entire body is thrown into boiling oil.
I can't be still, as if hoping I can escape out of my own body and follow him wherever we go when we're done here.
I can't get anything out but wailing, sorrowful screams that tear through my throat as tears sting my eyes and a God awful headache ensues.
My heart is drowned in a feeling of dread so unadulterated that I genuinely feel like I might actually die.
So, I scream like it, which is nothing new to HYDRA at this point.
I hit the mirror in the bathroom with both of my balled up hands until it breaks, snapping me back to reality while my chest heaves, my face stinging with hot tears.
I hear a knock at the bathroom door and I curse under my breath and wipe my tears the best I can, before I open it up to see Steven.
"Are you alright?" He asks me, glancing over my head to see the busted up mirror, his eyes looking at my cut up hands.
"You can drop the concern, Mr. America, you're probably doing a victory lap in your head." I reply, waking to the bathtub and sitting on the edge of it, my face in my hands.
"Katrina," he starts, shutting the door to give us some privacy, "I'd like to think we've been working together long enough that you could've come to me about this."
"And say what? 'Hey, I work in human resources but I've also been HYDRAs bitch since 1943?'" I ask, looking up at him, and he breathes out.
"What Zola was saying about you giving up your freedom for security…"
"...Adolf had a specific agenda against us. Different from the Jews. We were labeled 'Rhineland bastards' and treated as cancerous sores amongst Germans, the results of African troops having relations with German women after their time serving in the first World War. Once he set out to purify Germany, sterilizations were made mandatory, most of us who got pregnant were forced to get abortions, most of us lost our jobs, a lot of us lost part of our family...I met Johann not long after my family died. I was at the end of my rope and was infuruated and sitting silently and hiding was doing nothing for me so I poked the bear. They wanted me to be sent off to a camp but Schmidt intervened and secretly kept me with him and Zola at HYDRAs headquarters. It wasn't until later that he disclosed to me that he knew who I was through my mother Esther, he didn't speak of her much but from what I gathered she didn't take anything laying down and he made it clear he expected the same of me during the time I was taught and trained by him and Dr. Arnim Zola while a coup was plotted on Adolf."
"Taught and trained to do what?"
"Arnim taught me the science behind the super soldier and how to make one." I explain to him. "Johann's teachings were a bit more hands on." I add.
"So, you were taught the brains and brawn of Captain America." He clarifies.
"You were a threat. And we obviously, were at a loss when you took our subjects out from under us."
"How come I never saw you? I was all over anything that had even a rumor of HYDRA being involved."
"I stayed away as much as I could. Johann made sure of it."
"So, he protected you."
"I thought so at the time. It wasn't until later that I realized he was preserving me."
He furrows his brows, confused.
"Once the war ended and Zola was taken under S.H.I.E.L.D, I fled to the soviets where I was then briefed on a new experiment he was conducting. A super soldier created to enforce our cause, 'the fist of HYDRA,' is what he referred to him as."
"The Winter Soldier." Steve says and I nod slowly.
"I helped him with the procedure, as much as he'd allowed me. He got oddly secretive throughout the process and even came to a point that he didn't want me in the same building as it was taking place. I always thought it was to spare me the gorey reality of bending an innocent man to do heinous crimes...it wasn't until they turned on me that I realized they didn't want me to be very hands on in the Winter Soldier's preparedness, because I'd discover their process for me. He told me, 'a body needs life,' before I was sedated. He then administered to me something one of its kind, not to be replicated, not to be tampered with. The Winter Soldier is their fist, I'm their breath. Part of their programming was to bond our mind, will, and emotions—nothing telepathic, but a strong empathy—to use me as a gauge on him to see how long out of cryofreeze he can operate before his mind attempts to heal. If he's too far gone to be talked down, his mind is wiped clean using specialized electroconvulsive 'therapy'." I explain. "The only memories he maintains clearly are of me being our circumstances of being connected. We're encoded in each other's brains, basically." I add. "I'm used to keep him as docile as he can be."
"Are you on ice when he is?" He asks me next.
"There was never a need. Part of my curse that Arnim and many others saw as a gift...they tried nine different tactics once their work on me was complete. Shooting me, burning me to death, poisoning me, exposing me to dangerous, skin eating levels of radiation, injecting me with fast acting cancer cells, attempting to bleed me out, suffocating me, giving me a medically induced heart attack that would kill anyone else within minutes...I would not die. I was told anytime I do 'die,' however, one hundred years is added to my life."
"You can't die? How?"
"There's a nine second setback." I go on. "So the moment I die time sets back nine seconds to 'reboot' my body, in that nine seconds I gain oje hundred years and I heal. I'm not exactly sure how that works but I do know he's the only one who can kill me. Not that they told me that, my guess is once they get him to kill me and gain the nine hundred years, plus what is left of his own years, someone will kill him to reap momentary immortality." I speculate.
"Why would he kill you when y—"
"—Because he can't control it. All they have to do is say specific code words and it activates the programming Arnim put inside of his head and he carries out whatever orders are given to him whether he wants to or not." I stand up. "I don't know what exactly Project Insight is, they don't tell me things like that since I got caught plotting to leave them a few years ago. Just know that I'm screwing HYDRA over and getting him out of it, but I can't stay here with you. They'll find out I'm here, if they haven't already, and I don't feel like being on the run, again, from supremacists." I say next. "I'll find a way to contact you about what the plan is."
"How can I know to trust you?" He asks me.
"Because not doing this for you, or anybody, except him." I honestly tell him. "For his peace and my freedom."
"I'm sorry." He tells me as I walk to the door, and I stop and look at him. "Had I known what was going on at the time, I would've found you and gotten you outta there, too."
"I wasn't being experimented on way back then." I shake my head.
"Doesn't matter. I still would've gotten you out."
"Of course you would've." I mumble, leaving him.
HYDRA HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON D.C.
My stomach is in knots as I step down the hallway towards where he is, seeing his doctors waiting outside, speaking.
"Pierce is on his way," one of them says to me, "Use caution, he's lashed out."
"Can't imagine why." I reply bitterly, stepping through the door, seeing him looking around the room, his chest heaving with breath as agents point their guns at him.
"You need to wait for Pierce, Kraus." Rollins warns me.
I ignore him, and in turn he repeats harshly, "I said wait."
"Or what? You'll kill me?" I ask him, mockingly.
He looks at me as if he's beating me to a pulp in his mind before he shifts his gaze, and I cautiously step to James, a weight on my shoulders from the amount of confusion I can feel him drowning in.
The IV in the top of his right hand has come loose from its tape, definitely a result of him having an episode.
Right now he's just sitting still in a trance-like state.
"I need a new IV." I tell his doctors, as I head to the corner by the door and grab a pair of gloves, putting them on and heading to the right side of him, crouching.
"Here," one of them hands me a new needle and catheter and alcohol pad before stepping back to the group of agents with guns, and I carefully take his messed up one out before wiping the top of his hand with an alcohol pad.
"Little pinch," I warn quietly before sliding the needle into his skin, pretty sure he can't hear me due to being in his own mind, but he does hear me, his brows furrowing just slightly.
"Katrina," he says it merely under his breath, his voice shaking, his eyes still looking off, and I force myself to keep it together.
I finish the IV, taping it back down and taking my gloves off, going to stand up but he grasps my hand in his, tightly, for a moment before relaxing it and letting it go.
I try to remain calm and take a couple breaths, hoping that if I'm not tense or on edge, he won't be as wound up.
I go to throw the gloves aside as Pierce and Rumlov walk in and in one motion of Alexander's hands, the men lower their weapons.
"Mission report." Pierce speaks sternly to James, my hands balling up nervously.
He doesn't flinch because I'm sure he isn't listening.
"Mission. Report." Pierce repeats.
Still, no response. No sign of acknowledgement.
He steps closer and leans down to eye level with him, before back handing him, hard, to snap him out of his trance.
I know it probably doesn't hurt, but it makes me flinch and bite my tongue, forcing my feet to stay glued where they are.
"The man on the bridge," Blue eyes finally look at Pierce as he speaks, relief filling me, "who was he?"
I slightly furrow my brows.
"You met him earlier this week on another assignment." Pierce explains slowly to him.
His intense gaze shifts from Pierce, to me.
"I knew him." He says next, and I take a step forward before Pierce glares at me and takes a seat beside him while the soldier continues to think vigorously.
"Your work has been a gift to mankind." Pierce starts. "You shaped the century." He adds. "And I need you to do it one more time. Society's at a tipping point between order and chaos, and tomorrow morning we're gonna give it a push. But, if you don't do your part, I can't do mine...and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."
James gives Pierce a pointed look, a pitiful look, that has me tempted to shove the point of my heeled shoe into Pierce's eye.
"But I knew him." He repeats it as if it's bizarre for them to expect him to be comfortable doing this.
None of us really expected him to remember much of anything at this point.
I can tell Pierce is irritated, disappointed even.
Their ruthless Winter Soldier actually has a heart and some morals when he's not under their spell.
"You know her, too," he nods in my direction and I dread what's about to come next, "right?"
James nods slowly, slowly shifting from confused and troubled to unamused and angry.
"Do you know what happens to her if you don't follow your orders, soldier?" He asks him next.
"What happens to her?" James asks, his expression obvious that he knows very well what he's about to say, he just wants him to go ahead and get it out so he has a justified reason to attack him.
Pierce stands up, deciding wisely to not bite off more than he can chew.
"Prep him." He tells the doctors.
"He's been out of Cryofreeze too long." One of them replies.
"Then wipe him, and start over." Pierce orders.
"Sir, I don't think that's—" I start.
"—Kraus, you've been on this case for seventy years. Don't get yourself expelled now when we've almost completed our mission."
"This isn't fair to him." I say as calmly as I can, trying to ignore the doctors putting a mouth guard in his mouth.
"No, it's not fair for you to roll around in the sheets with our asset on your off time and then expect things to be done any differently than how they've always been done here." He raises his brows as he looks down at me and I breathe out. "You will compose yourself and keep your opinions on what you think should be done, to yourself, or so help me God I will turn you from his innocent little 'never hurt a fly' Katrina, to hismission. Do you understand me?"
I stare at him.
"Yes." I say, my voice teary and shaking in frustration and defeat as the room is filled with James' screams as electricity blankets his brain.