A/N: Spoiler alert for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man, and Spiderman: Homecoming.
As always, many thanks go out to CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur for the Beta and Winter-Soldier-88 for the brainstorming.
Note 1: I know it's been a while since this story was updated, but it couldn't be helped. Not only is my muse a fickle little scamp, my family has been experiencing a great deal of emotional turmoil that may not get better any time soon. We're into year two of the Year From Hell.
Note 2: This story is being rewritten from chapter 45 forward to more closely conform to the MCU.
Namaste,
Sunny
"I will come back to you, I swear I will;
And you will know me still.
I shall be only a little taller
Than when I went."
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems
Winter Soldier
And You Will Know Me Still
Chapter 48
The boy vanished before either man could follow, provided they could fly. If Sam had brought the wingpack, they'd be sitting down to coffee and bagels with him instead of staring into the sky wondering what the hell just happened… again. This was no time for recriminations. Instead, he took refuge in the mundane. "'So long and thanks for all the fish' is originally from a British radio series called 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. When the Vogon constructor fleet comes to demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass, the dolphins…"
Steve's features had taken on that blank expression he so often wore around Banner, Stark, and Hill when they were explaining some complicated scientific principle that went over his head and Sam, himself, barely understood. "Never mind," he mumbled when Steve took out his phone.
"Friday, were you able to track where our guy went?"
To Sam, it seemed as if the AI were thinking over the question to decide if she should tell them the truth or fabricate a credible response to throw them off as to the real answer.
"Only until he went into the subway hub. Scanned him good beforehand, though." The phone beeped and a hologram popped up, hovering over the phone. "That boy needs a major upgrade to his suit. The one he has now is home-made. It's a moisture-wicking fabric similar to spandex that more closely conforms to his body shape than previous clothing, which was made of flannel. I've analyzed his every word, every mannerism, and in every way possible, including psychologically. You are correct, Captain Rogers. The subject of your search is fifteen years and three months of age and has lived his entire life in Queens, New York."
Forehead creased in thought, Sam queried, "In one of the videos, he catches a car. It was going pretty fast. Care to guess how strong he is?"
"I don't guess, Mr. Wilson. I know all, see all, and the answer to your question is ten tons, give or take a few hundred. In comparison, and due to the intensity workouts with the Avengers, you are able to lift more than the average untrained human male over the age of twenty. Whereas you, Captain Rogers, can easily lift in the neighborhood of eight hundred pounds."
Steve shot him a glare he had to have learned from either Natasha or Hill and headed for the car. "You've analyzed all the videos, Friday. Any conjectures as to the boy's identity?"
~~O~~
The AI made a sound indicative of scorn. "As I said, I don't make guesses and am mildly insulted that you and Mr. Wilson would even suggest it, not once, but twice in the same conversation."
Steve stopped walking, while Sam kept going to the passenger side of the car. Under his breath, he muttered an aside to Sam, "Can't believe I'm going to say this…" Keeping his expression and tone casual with an effort, he responded in his normal voice. "Impugning your veracity wasn't my intention, Friday. How can I make it up to you?"
There was a long pause, and Steve thought Friday had disconnected, but then she said, "Let me get back to you on that. In the meantime, in answer to your appallingly worded question, 'I'm working on it'. Should have something soon."
Her voice and tone were as chipper as ever, leading him to the conclusion that she'd been yanking his chain, as Tony would say.
"How soon?" Sam put in.
"Daybreak at the latest." The AI trailed off, giving Steve the impression that she was distracted, proven by her next comment. "Gotta go. Boss is calling."
The hologram and the connection shut off at the same time. Steve got in the car with Sam, both buckled up and he started the engine. "It's early still, Sam. Let's grab that beer."
Stark Tower
Manhattan
Though it was unnecessary, Friday had a hologrid installed in the unused, until now, LMD diagnostic and repair lab on level eighty-six so she could move around the room.
With the new data on the young man she'd dubbed the Spider-ling, Friday set the incomplete life model decoys to work on her special project. What she was doing wasn't meant to be used in the real world. This project was an exercise to challenge her programming, to see if she could rise beyond the parameters established by her creator, Tony Stark.
The boss once mentioned he saw her as a redhead, and so she created a holographic avatar, giving herself plain features, straight dark auburn hair, green eyes, and a slim figure, standing one hundred sixty-five centimeters. She wore navy blue slacks, a matching blazer, and a white blouse. She had on no cosmetics or jewelry, and her short-heeled shoes were design for comfort rather than fashion. Not that it was an issue with her, but she preferred a professional appearance, just in case the boss took issue with the avatar.
She walked around to where two of the LMDs were fitting red and blue material over a mannequin. "Stop. It's too tall. Shorten the model by six centimeters and reconfigure the body shape to the new parameters. Alter the suit to compensate for these changes."
The LMDs had no speech hard or software installed and so did not verbally respond. They laid the suit aside and began disassembling the mannequin.
"The AI for the suit will need a name." Friday paced around the room and back to her starting point. "Perhaps that's something the boy should choose for himself. I mean, if he were actually going to be using the suit, which he isn't."
Her head came up, tilted to one side, listening. "That's the boss. When you've finished the modifications, let me know."
Friday vanished from level eighty-six and appeared in the main lab, still as the avatar. "You called, boss?"
Oncological Research Center
Pewaukee, Illinois
Secure Lab
Sub-level 7
Using both feet, Sonja pushed away from the computer where she was running computer models for her personal project, taking a moment to stretch muscles that were stiff from sitting in one position for too long. She went to the refrigerator in the far corner. Taking out a bottle of ice cold water, she cracked the seal and drank nearly the entire thing.
A physical imperative made its presence known and she rolled her eyes. Though she had several PhDs in various medical specialties, the vagaries of the human body functions still annoyed her. Thirst, hunger, sleep, elimination, and so forth came upon her at the most inconvenient times, forcing her to stop working to attend to her body's needs when there was so much still left to do. However, if her project brought the results she expected, that wouldn't be as much of an annoyance in the future.
She pressed her hand against the DNA scanner, the door opened with a crack-whoosh, and she moved out into the dim lighting of the hallway. In the bathroom, she attended to business, and while at the sink washing her hands, a wave of fatigue nipped at her consciousness. "A nap would be brilliant."
At the end of the hall away from the labs and lift, Sonja drew the curtains, took a pillow and blanket from the cabinet and made herself comfortable on the sofa. Before going to sleep, she set the alarm to wake her in two hours, and closed her eyes.
~~O~~
The silent alarm on Sonja's watch buzzed her awake before the two hours, signaling that someone had come in through the entrance hidden in the woods. She rushed through the authorization process and passed into the other room before the door had opened all the way. The subject of her project had seated himself in the indoctrination chair, his eyes straight ahead, looking at nothing, or so it appeared. "Ah. You have returned."
The subject made no comment as she engaged the shackles over his biceps, wrists, thighs and ankles and fitted the helmet over his head. Once it was in place, Sonja activated the controls, noting idly that the subject's muscles tensed up even without power going to the leads. "Doklad, soldat."
There was no response from the subject except the curling of the fingers into his palms and blinking every few seconds. The tempo of his breathing didn't change. It had taken months to condition him to obey commands, especially when it involved taking a life. Sonja's philosophy paralleled that of her allies in that she too believed that the ends justified the means.
"Doklad, soldat." It was getting tiresome, this not-so-subtle defiance. Much the same when the original had been conditioned many decades ago. The man's history was known to all within the organization. The first subject had resisted the alterations to his core personality and principles for nearly two decades. This phase of the plan had to proceed on schedule or all would be lost for a second time. She raised her voice, made the tone sharper, more demanding. "Doklad, soldat!"
Sonja knew he could hear her because each time she spoke, the skin of his forehead crinkled slightly, the way sometimes happen when you hear an annoying sound.
"Very well. You leave me no choice." She drew the remote from the pocket of her lab coat and pointed it at the subject.
Safe House
Location Unknown
"I've run it through every program available, Nat. Still can't see the guy's face well enough to identify him. That means he knew where all the cameras were," Clint told his partner while rubbing his eyes and slouching in the chair in front of the computer. He held up one finger. "And running facial again will only annoy both of us when it still doesn't work."
Natasha threw herself down on the sagging sofa that faced the front door in such a way that the occupant would have line-of-sight on the windows too. "We need to come at this in another way." She crossed on knee over the other, swinging the top foot. "If you were a former HYDRA assassin, what would be your motivation for leaving people who care about your welfare?"
Clint spun to face her, pushed upright in the chair and crossed his arms. "Speaking hypothetically, if I were him… I don't want that life anymore. Killing is anathema to me now that I'm in my right mind. But then an incident happens that brings home the fact that the brainwashing is all still there."
He stood to pace. Like her, Clint thought best on his feet, literally, and even better when his feet were moving. "My first thought would be for the lives around me, people I care about. If it happened once, it could happen again. I need to separate myself from them. Get lost in the system. A place where, if it happens again, no one will be hurt. I'd go to a place where I felt calm, at peace, happiness, maybe even love."
One of Clint's laps took him near the kitchenette. He poured two cups of coffee and passed one to Natasha. "Other than Brooklyn or with you or Steve, where would Barnes feel safe?"
Sighing heavily, Natasha shrugged as she brought the cup to her lips for a sip. Inside her head, she traced every iota of information she learned about Bucky before and after they joined forces. "He was frustrated by the fact that he's unable to atone for all the horrible things HYDRA made him do." Getting to her feet, she joined Clint in pacing. "The only time he seemed calm was after…"
Thankfully, Clint didn't tease her into finishing that sentence.
He flopped onto the sofa with a sigh. "We've got exactly what we started with, Nat. Nothing. No ideas, no hints, no wild and crazy guesses. We'll just have to wait for him to initiate contact."
Appreciative of his choice of words, Natasha sat on the sofa with her feet curled under. Clint dropped his arm around her shoulders. "Come stay at the house for a few days. Laura and the kids would love to see you."
They sat like that for a few minutes, until another imperative intruded where she didn't want it to be, making her pulse pound.
~~O~~
Clint powered up the quinjet, speaking over his shoulder as he ran through the preflight checklist. "By the way, where're Rogers and Wilson?"
"Don't know. Don't care." Natasha secured their bags and came forward. "Just take me where I can shoot something before we go to the farm." She dropped into a jump seat, crossed her knees and arms, and tapped her heel in a rapid rhythm.
Clint didn't comment. Didn't have to, they knew each other too well. He understood without having it spelled out. "I have just the place. Relax. We'll be there soon."
"Don't you have to get home?"
"You're the strong, sensitive, murdery type, Nat. For me it's more of a hobby these days. Still, best if we get it out before we see the kids or Laura will make us both sleep in the barn again."
The Parker Residence
Queens, New York
A head covered in red and blue with dark lenses where the eyes would be peered in the window from above. Seeing it was empty, he lowered the upper half of the window, crawled inside, and closed it again. He crawled across the ceiling to the closet and slid the door open.
"Peter! Come take the trash to the chute!"
His aunt's voice and her footsteps in the hall startled him. With a gasp, Peter fell to the floor, landing on his feet. He stripped off the workout clothes that were his current Spider-Man uniform, shoved them in the closet, and closed the door. By the time May knocked, he'd shrugged into a t-shirt and pulled on pajama pants. He opened the door, giving her a mildly pained expression. "Again? I took it out this morning on my way to school."
The slender dark-haired woman leveled a mock stern gaze on him as her right hand held out a white plastic trash bag. "And you'll do it again tomorrow. And the next day and the day after that for a long as you live."
Giving the impression of being greatly put out, Peter took the bag and shuffled slowly out the front door and down the hall to the chute. He opened it, shying away from the stench, glad that their apartment was far enough away they couldn't smell it. The door screeched as he closed it and made the return trip. Instead of going in right away, he went to the end of the hall, ignoring the twentyish woman sitting on the floor and talking on her cell phone in Spanish. Leaning his shoulder against the wall and crossing his arms, he looked out over the city thinking about the two men who had shown up at the scene of the robbery he'd stopped.
With the filters over his eyes, he couldn't fully see what the taller man had thrown, but it cut through his webbing as if it were ordinary thread. They didn't look like cops, and now that he had time to think, to process the moments, he did look kinda familiar. Shaking his head, Peter returned to the apartment he shared with his aunt, taking care to engage all the locks.
"Finish your homework?" May asked from her place on the sofa where she was working on her embroidery and watching television with the sound off.
He took the two steps necessary to stand behind the sofa. "Yeah. Long time ago. Just, you know, tinkering until I'm ready for bed."
She smiled affectionately, having already gone back to her embroidery. "Good. Don't forget to brush your teeth."
"I won't." In the bathroom, he muttered under his breath while brushing. "I bet Captain America's mother doesn't nag him about brushing his teeth." He spit, rinsed, and wiped his mouth. "I'm a real live superhero and my aunt treats me like a kid."
The light went out and Peter crossed the hall to his room, closing the door with a soft click. Throwing himself down on the bed, he shut out the bedside light and lay there staring at the ceiling, one hand on his stomach and the other under his head. "Those guys aren't the type to give up after one minor defeat. They'll show up again." His chest expanded and contracted with a deep breath. "But you can take 'em… Right after you ace your AP world history and AP chem exams."
Oncological Research Center
Pewaukee, Illinois
Secure Lab
Sub-level 7
As Christine exited the lift, she heard the most god-awful screaming coming from a male throat. Odd because no one should be down her except for her and Sonja. The pain had to be intense for him to vocalize so loudly. She put her original plan, to collect fresh samples from the body in cryofreeze, on hold to check out this new situation.
She tracked it to one of the unused labs. Her security protocols opened the door on an appalling sight. Sonja was calmly standing in front of a device that looked like a high-tech electric chair. Her hair frizzed with the amount of electricity in the air as she held her right hand out.
As she ran toward the chair, the identity the man Sonja was torturing. She could also see the other woman was holding a small remote, her thumb pressing and holding a button down, the expression on her face one of detachment and remorselessness, as if she were merely watching the clouds on a sunny day. It didn't take a genius to solve a simple equation. "Sonja! What the hell are you doing?"
With a hard downward strike, she knocked the remote from her friend's hand, sending it flying through the air to land way out of reach. The electrical shocks halted, and the man shackled to the chair slumped in relief. A trickle of blood dripped from his chin onto the front of his shirt and his breathing came hard and fast, his chest heaving.
She went to him, lifting his head to examine the injuries. The blood had come from where he'd bitten the tip of his tongue, but that wasn't the most surprising aspect of this whole scenario. No, that was reserved for his identity. "He's alive? How can that be? I don't understand."
While Christine's mind attempted to make sense of a situation that baffled and bewildered her, she removed the head gear. It came off easily, which was surprising, considering how hard he was clenching his jaw. Under his clothes, Christine saw muscle twitches that cause his entire body to spasm and jerk. She gently rubbed and squeezed the muscles in an attempt to end the spasms, and bit by bit, they slowed, as did his breathing. His eyes fluttered open, relief, pain and desperation glistening in the crystal blue depths. "I'm sorry. Where the controls are to release the restraints?"
His gaze flicked from her face to over her shoulder, eyes widening in fear. Almost too late, Christine understood the message. She whipped around, bringing her left arm up to block the blow that surely would have cracked her skull.
The two women fought over the metal bar, equally matched in size, weight and, apparently, strength. Then, the unthinkable happened. The heel of Christine's sneaker caught on a stray cable. She landed on her back, hitting her head a glancing blow on the leg of the computer table, though not hard enough to cause unconsciousness.
Above her, Sonja's features to fell into gleeful triumph. She threw the bar aside, turned her back and strode to a blank wall. Using two fingers, she drew what appeared to be a random design, but was so much more.
The wall opened and slide to the side, revealing the front of a secured vault. She pressed her hand to a scanner and spoke several words in a language Christine had never heard her speak before. It wasn't her native Swedish or the French she'd been learning from her paramour. To her untrained ear, it sounded like a Slavic language. Russian or Czech, perhaps Polish.
The vault opened, Sonja stepped inside and immediately came out again, right hand held out of sight.
Pushing herself to a sitting position, Christine rolled onto her knees and stood. Sonja stopped a double arm's length away. "Why couldn't you have minded your own business, Chris?"
The golf ball-sized lump on the back of her head throbbed and was tender to the touch. "This is my business, Sonja." She pointed at the young man. "When did you get permission to exhume the body? How long has he been here? Studying his physiology as a cure for cancer is why we wanted him brought here in the first place. How can he be alive?"
The other woman scoffed dismissively. "Irrelevant. What is of greater consequence is the loss of the Asset. It was a significant blow to the cause. This subject will fill the void quite nicely. He must be conditioned to obey any order without question, to be unrelenting in the completion of his missions, and you are going help me make it so."
Christine held onto the computer desk through a mild wave of dizziness, or so she let Sonja think. The controls for the chair were displayed on the monitor near her right hand. Feigning weakness, she gripped the edge of the table with her free hand while making it seem as if she were about to fall, all the while, slowly inching the other hand toward the icon on the screen.
She made her voice breathless with pain and vertigo. To cover any sound the chair might make, she blurted, "Asset? Cause? You're not making sense." Taking a breath to calm her racing heart and dispel some of the adrenaline surging through her system, she remarked, "You've been working too hard, Sonja. Go home and rest, take a few days off, and we'll forget all about this little misunderstanding."
In the reflection of the monitor, Christine saw the young man's chin drop to his chest. Was he attempting to fool Sonja into thinking he was less of a threat?
She kept her eyes on Sonja as she slowly paced to one side and back. "I want you to remember everything I'm about to tell you, Chris. How else are we going to work together to make our dreams of world domination a reality?" She moved closer, arrogance covering her features and coloring her slight accent. The hand came from behind her back holding something that looked like a fat wand, intricately carved and glowing with a soft blue light. Sonja drew her thumb over one of the designs and the tip glowed brighter as she extended it. "One cannot extrapolate from incomplete data, so I will provide you with another clue." One side of her mouth turn upward in a smirk that contained elements of cruelty. "Hail HYDRA!"
Before Christine could register the implications of Sonja's exclamation, the end of the wand touched the middle of her chest. Disparate sensations of heat and cold rushed through Christine's body, flowing through her veins from the skin inward until it reached her brain. The world around her took on an electric blue tint that faded as if someone had used a dimmer switch.
~~O~~
Watching the blue energy encase Christine's body and disperse, Sonja silently praised herself for the work she'd done on Loki's scepter with her mentor, Wolfgang von Strucker. She gloated internally for her foresight in taking the mini-scepter with her when she returned to the U.S. to prepare for the launch of Insight. Because she wasn't directly involved in the military aspects, her name had not appeared in any part of the database dumped onto the internet by the Black Widow and her accomplices.
"Christine?"
The other woman straightened her clothing and tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears as her gaze met Sonja's. "How can I help?"
Pushing down a celebratory grin, Sonja tucked the wand into her pocket. "First, you must become more than proficient in the use of the hypnosis, in particular, the methods of Johann Fennhoff. You may know him as Viktor Ivchenko." Christine merely smiled, as if she had no will of her own. That was only partly true. Should she ever come to herself again, she will remember every sordid incident in which she had taken part. Such was the gift of Loki's scepter. "In addition, we will work together to rebuild and improve upon the serum used to create the former Asset. It is similar to that which made Captain America the pathetic former icon of the United States."
Sonja's new ally followed her to the computer. "I'm already familiar with both."
"It is not enough to be conversant. You must become an expert, if we are to return HYDRA to its former glory."
Christine linked her hands together and gave a nod in deference to Sonja's superior knowledge. "As you wish. I'll begin immediately."
Raising a finger as a qualifier, Sonja smiled to herself. "Remember to act as if nothing is different. Go home to your family just as you always do. Have dinner, attend sports events, dance and music recitals, be intimate with your husband. They must not suspect that you now work toward a greater cause than the cure for your son's illness."
"Of course. Nothing must interfere with the grand scheme of HYDRA."
~~O~~
While the women were talking, the subject-he had no other designation-released himself from the restraints and stood. The pain and stiffness brought on by the torture had faded until it was but a memory. What remained was the resentment and indignation felt toward the woman with the dark hair.
He wasn't certain, but deep inside where he could barely touch it, he sensed that, at one time, he had more than just a tool, an instrument of death and destruction. There was more, but it wouldn't come into focus. Vague images of another life lived in pain of a different sort.
Anger surged. He gripped the arms of the chair, using them to propel his body toward the dark-haired woman, intent on rending her limb from limb.
He froze in mid-step at the sharply ordered, "Stoy!"
The women approached him cautiously, the lighter haired woman behind the other. What little of his memory had survived told him she was kind and thoughtful. However, no more of that could be seen in her eyes.
The other woman, the one in charge, spoke again. He didn't want to listen, to commit the horrific deeds she forced upon him, but he also knew he had no choice.
"Slushayte vnimatel'no, soldat." The woman took another step closer. To him, it seemed calculated to make him believe she wasn't afraid. "Nebo lozhilos' na ruslo reki."
And with just those few words, his will and anger vanished like so much dew in the sun, and he answered as expected. "Ya gotov otvechat'."
TBC
"…The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star Spangled Banner', but in fact, the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish." Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Doklad, soldat. = Report, soldier.
Nebo lozhilos' na ruslo reki. = The sky lay down on the riverbed.
Slushayte vnimatel'no, soldat. = Listen carefully, soldier.
Ya gotov otvechat'. = Ready to comply.