Hi everyone! It's been a very long time, since I last wrote a story. What can I say? Adulting has been difficult. So moving on, I spent last night reading a few of my old Marvel fanfics, and well, OUCH. I haven't cringed so much in a long time. Don't get me wrong I still like what I wrote but a lot of it felt forced. If you don't believe me, feel free to go read one.
So this story is mostly for me, I love Marvel films and I have an obsession with Chicago Fire *cough cough Severide*. I don't particularly enjoy writing from the perspective of existing characters, I can never do them justice. This is why I've created my own character to base this weird universe around.
If you're anything like me you've skipped over this waffling author's note, so I'll just get one with it now. Hope you all enjoy!
I was standing on the bank of the Potomac river, watching chunks of the Triskelion collapse into it. Everyone was panicked, shouting and screaming; three heli carriers were in the air and their weapons systems were beginning to target each other. Not good, definitely not good.
Today had all started so normally, I'd woken up, made a coffee, taken a shower, gotten dressed, checked my phone, made some toast, burnt it, made some more and shoved it in my mouth as I grabbed by bag, phone and keys and headed out the door. The 35 minute drive to work was borderline boring and I got my usual space in the parking garage. The corridors were all lively with people running around doing their jobs, and my office had its usual smell of yesterdays coffee. My desk, as usual, had the odd after action report scattered across it. I've been trying to get the dinosaurs upstairs to go paperless for a while, no luck yet. All completely average. How did it all end so badly.
I work for S.H.I.E.L.D, but my job description well that's a little complex. You see, I was raised by my grandmother, the infamous Director Peggy Carter. She was a complete badass and all I ever wanted to do as a child, was be like her. In all honesty, nobody could ever live up to her example, but I sure as hell was always gonna try. She and Howard Stark built S.H.I.E.L.D up from the ground (kinda) it wouldn't be what it is today without them. My grandad died before I was born, we don't really talk about him. Relationships are completed, and even though I know she cared for him deeply, I don't think she was ever truly in love with him. My lovely mum's name was Amanda (and yes I said mum, I am British… ish), she was named after my great-grandmother. She died when I was 4, cancer, it was a short battle and I still miss her everyday. My dad never truly recovered from losing mum. He spent more and more time away but never missed my birthday or Christmas. So the long and short of it all is, I spent an awful lot of time hanging around S.H.I.E.L.D agents as a child. I learnt to fight, to spot the smallest flaws and imperfections, I learnt to be a spy and a solider all rolled into one. That's not to say that I didn't also have a normal childhood. I went to school, hung around the shops with friends, drank cheap alcohol wrapped in a paper bag at night in the park, I got myself into all sorts of trouble. Especially, when I spent time with one, Tony Stark. He was 10 years older than me and for some reason was often stuck with babysitting responsibilities. I mean seriously, Tony of all people. But he taught me to build things, and program software; really those skills are what made my job so complex. I'm, or I was a combat agent, but I was only sent on the high risk missions. The ones where an Ops team would have been too dangerous. I was used to working alone and like my grandmother, was not always the greatest at following rules.
As I said, the day the Triskelion fell, started off completely ordinary. Right up until the voice of Steve Rogers was sounding out of every speaker in the building.
"Attention all S.H.I.E.L.D agents, this is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days." I was in one of the Operations centres at the time, people looked up in confusion. Sharon, my mum's cousin, was at the other end of the room, she gave me a knowing look. She'd been undercover a few weeks earlier, watching Steve, we knew something was happening but we were not expecting what he said next. "Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. I think it's time you know the truth, S.H.I.E.L.D is not what we thought it was, it's been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. Strike and Insight crew are HYDRA as well, I don't know how many more, I know they're in the building, they could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want, absolute control. They shot Nick Fury and it won't end there. If you launch those helicarriers today HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way. Unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot, the price of freedom is high, always has been. It's a price I'm willing to pay and if I'm the only one then so be it, but I'm willing to bet I'm not."
The room remained silent, everyone looked at each other nervously. All sense of trust was lost, I found myself trying to read peoples faces, movements and breathing looking for any sign of a traitor. I could see Sharon doing the same at the other end of the room. Training had well and truly kicked in for the both of us. My ears fixed onto the sound of purposeful footsteps coming in our direction. I didn't need to see who it was to know that whoever was coming was HYDRA. They were the only ones that would still have a direction or even orders at this point.
I was right, mere seconds late Rumlow appeared. He walked straight up to one of the launch control staff and demanded that he initiate the launch sequence. The man refused, "Captain's orders." He said the words quietly but surprisingly firmly considering he was clearly terrified. I realise now that I don't even know the mans name, I hope he made it out, he really was the bravest person in that room.
Rumlow held a gun to the back of the man's head, Sharon ran forwards and pointed her own gun at Rumlow, "He's right, Captain's orders". I walked up to his other side as the room filled with more of the former strike team. When Rumlow turned to look at me, I did nothing more than draw my weapon, tilt my head and smirk at him. He looked back at his own weapon for a second, he dropped his arm and then dropped the gun. The noise made the poor controller jump and whimper in fright, I pushed him quickly under the desk. In that second, Rumblow had drawn a knife and slashed out at Sharon, she gasped and dropped her gun. He caught it and began firing at various other agents in the room. In fact, pretty much everyone with a weapon started firing. The sides were clear, the S.H.I.E.L.D agents were the ones pushing unarmed staff under desks and trying to cover them with rapid gunfire. In the craziness Rumblow had managed to launch the code he needed and escape the room, Sharon was after him pretty sharpish.
I was left in a room full of untrained, terrified agents. The HYDRA agents were still there and they were still shooting. I caught the attention of some of the operations team, gesturing for them to move towards the far door, whilst I covered them. Other armed agents did the same. I think we got around 15 people out of the room, some were injured and the majority were in shock but they were all looking for various escapes. I told some of the remaining armed agents to find them a way to safety and then quickly turned and ran back into the warzone before anyone could question me.
Why did I go back in? Honestly, I don't know. It was stupid. I was stupid Or maybe just stubborn. I knew Rumlow had launched the helicarriers, and I knew nothing good would come of those things being live. I hadn't met Steve Rogers at this point. It's crazy I know, he was such a big parent of my grandmothers life, but I didn't need to know him to trust what he had said. And I certainly didn't need to know him to know that he would die before he let HYDRA win.
I ran through the building, heading for the helicarriers, pulling struggling S.H.I.E.L.D agents free from whatever trouble they were in as I went. I rounded a corner and nearly flattened Agent Hill.
"Ellie." She shouted as she stuck her arm out to catch me. I hit her arm with such force we were both spun in a circle, I reached out to grab the wall for support and bent forward slightly trying to catch my breath. "Are you ok? Where did you come from? You're covered in blood." Hill said giving me the once over.
"I'm fine. I was in the Ops room. It got a little messy, none of this is my blood, or at least I don't think it is." I told her, as I looked down at myself, noticing my shirt was covered in blood splatters.
Two figures emerged from the doorway behind Hill. One was instantly recognisable, Steve Rogers. The other I didn't know, but he had what looked like a bulky jet pack attached to his back. It kinda reminded me of something Tony and I had tried to build as kids.
"Wow, that is a look. Busy… by S.H.I. ." He mimicked the voice of the perfume adverts that are on an endless loop at Christmas.
"Oh and what are you calling that look? Irrelevant by the US Air Force?" I snapped back.
"Ooh touche touche." He laughed, then turned to Steve whilst pointing at me, "I like this one. She's funny can we keep her? Wait, how'd you know I was Air Force?"
"Lucky guess." I shrugged.
"Erm excuse me." Hill interjected, "Is anyone at all concerned with the helicarriers that HYDRA seem to be pretty adamant on launching?"
Steve nodded matter of factly, "Of course, Hill stay here monitor their progress. Fury and Romanoff are dealing with Pierce, the rest of us just need to keep those helicarriers grounded."
"Right." Hill nodded, "Ellie, what are the chances of you being able to hack the launch? Or alter the code? We have these, they're like a backdoor into the system but it's not going to be easy to get them in place."
Hill held up three program chips, I knew exactly what they were, I've used them so many times before, but it would be almost impossible to get one into all three helicarriers.
"I can definitely try, but Rumlow has already overridden all of the normal protocols, remote access just isn't going to happen. Those will work, and I might be able to add a fail safe but I would need to be on the helicarrier to do it."
"Lets do it." Jet pack guy said with certainty. Everyone agreed and then we were running down the corridors leaving Hill behind.
"What's your name?" Steve asked me as we ran.
"Ellie, Ellie Carter." I replied, I never like using my last name at work. Everyone knows my grandmother and that's not always the easiest thing to deal with. But in this instance it probably worked in my favour. Steve glanced at me, I knew what he wanted to ask so I just nodded before the words even came out his mouth.
"Nice to meet you Ellie," He said as we spun round the corner and outside, the helicarrier doors were starting to open already and we could see people fighting below us. "This is Sam."
Sam mock saluted me at the mention of his name and called out, "Hey cap, how do we tell the bad guys from the good guys?"
"If they're shooting at you, they're bad." Steve called back.
We'd reached the edge of the doors, Steve jumped, and Sam, turns out his jet pack isn't so much a jet pack but more wings. They were off, I jumped over the edge and twisted, grabbing onto a pipe that ran down towards the loading zone. Gunfire surrounded me, literally, it was all I could hear. I ran towards the nearest helicarrier as it began to rise. I grabbed onto one of the bottom air vents and pulled myself up, there's a small service hatch next to the vents. It's supposed to be sealed but HYDRA had launched in a hurry, I'd crawled in within seconds.
One advantage of being Peggy Carter's granddaughter is that it comes with a certain level of authority. I rose up the ranks fast, and had one of the highest clearance levels. Which means I may have, on occasion, looked files that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Like, for example, the project Insight files which may, or may not have included the schematics for the new helicarriers.
So after crawling through the service hatch, I knew exactly which direction I needed to go in to get to the computer controls. It didn't take me long, I wasn't openly visible and HYDRA didn't think to keep an eye on the service tunnels. The control room wasn't empty when I got there, anything but. I secured the chip in my pockets and drew my gun. I slid across so I was directly underneath a vent and had a pretty good view of everyone in the room. Six well aimed shots took down half the people in the room. It also gave away my position. I spun myself round and back into the service tunnels as quickly as possible. I heard the vent open behind me, several HYDRA agents were hot on my tail. I found the nearest service hatch and quickly pulled myself out. Luckily there was no one in the corridor, and once the hatch was shut they couldn't tell it had ever been open I heard as they scuttled past underneath me. I slowly backtracked towards the control room, when I reached the door, I listened carefully. Nothing but silence was on the other side, so I pushed it open and snuck instead, tightly shutting myself in.
I placed the chip onto the programming slot. The computer instantly recognised the code, and opened an authorisation window. That's when I really got to work. I began reprogramming this chip to update the others. They would no longer need to be placed directly into the slot, just need to be within 500 yards of the computer. Hopefully, it would make it easier for Steve and Sam. The computer accepted the code, and all that was left to do was to get out.
I turned towards the door, but was instead faced with a man, with long brown hair, a black mask and a silver arm. The Winter Solider. He was a legend in S.H.I.E.L.D, no one ever saw him coming and no one ever lived to tell the tale. He didn't say anything, he just stood there watching me. Why hadn't he stopped me? I took a step back. He didn't move. So I kept moving back.
And then he lunged. He was on top of me in seconds. No guns, he was just pounding me with his silver arm. I tried to block him, but I felt my bone crunch, I started to push myself away but another hit came and my ribs seared with pain. The hits kept coming and I couldn't escape, and certainly couldn't fight back. Any punch I did manage to get in didn't seem to effect him, not to the temple, not to the ribs or the stomach. Hell, I even kicked him in the balls. Nothing. I saw my opportunity when he pulled back for another hit. I rolled to my right, straight into the computer console and pulled out as many wires as I could. When he lunged at me again I threw them around his neck and pulled tight. I could see the wire cutting into his skin but it only made him angry. He jerked backwards with such force that I was pulled completely into the air. At the same time the helicarrier dropped a few feet, when I slammed back into the ground I was against the glass windows. I couldn't see the winter solider anymore, but a gun laid beside me, I shot out the glass and fell a few hundred feet to the ground. I felt a crunch as landed and then everything went black.
When I came around I was on the bank of the Potomac, my ribs felt like the were on fire and so did my arm. I struggled to my feet despite a voice beside me telling me to stay still. I looked up, all three helicarriers were in the air.
Oh no, the programming hadn't worked, at least one should've gone down by now. As I watched the weapons on the bottom were taking aim, I froze. A few seconds passed and nothing happened. And then they moved, they were aiming at each other. Instant fire. Bits of helicarrier were going everywhere, one fell into the Triskelion, completely collapsing at least half the building.
I looked back up just in time to see a body falling from one of the wrecks. I screamed, I didn't know who it was, I just screamed.
And the end. Of chapter 1, that is. I hope you enjoyed it, as always please leave a review.
If you know anything about computer science or programming please do not judge my complete and utter lack of knowledge. Anything computer related is completely made up, but I still hope it makes sense, even if it is wrong.
Love you guys xem98x