No Trigger Warnings.
Slowly swapping all the words from their Serbian counterparts to Russian.
Four: Печь
January 9th
"Insight Bay," Fury said as they entered the elevator.
"Captain Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight," the computer replied. Steve looked at Annie as she nestled into the corner. She could say that was her name all she wanted, but he was sure she was his Maggie—his all but adopted older sister for over twenty years of his life.
"Director override. Fury, Nicholas J." Fury responded to the computer. The AI beeped in confirmation and Steve tore his eyes away from Maggie, to Fury, then to the ceiling of the elevator as if he was looking for speakers.
"They used to play music," Steve said attempting to distract himself from his thoughts on the girl in the corner.
"Yeah," Fury said with a laugh, "My grandfather operated one of these things for 40 years. My granddad worked in a nice building. He got good tips. He'd walk home every night with a roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He'd say "Hi." People would say "hi" back. Time went on, the neighborhood got rougher. He'd say "Hi." They'd say, "Keep on steppin'." Granddad got to gripping that lunch bag a little tighter."
"He ever get mugged?" Steve asked Fury chuckled.
"Every week some punk would say "What's in the bag?"—"
"What did he do?" Anya asked and Fury looked at her with a grin.
"He'd show 'em," he said as they went underground, "A bunch of crumpled ones and a loaded .22 Magnum." Steve nodded as if saying 'of course' and Fury smiled as he turned around to face the hangar through the glass elevator.
"Yeah, Granddad loved people," he said walking over next to Anya and looking out the window. She turned to follow his gaze as he continued, "but he didn't trust them very much."
"Wow," was all Anya could manage as she saw the three giant ships. Steve turned and stood closely behind her as he looked out as well, his face in awe.
"Yeah, I know," Fury said looking at Anya, then to Steve, "They're a little bit bigger than a .22."
"This is project Insight," Fury said, leading them beneath the Helicarriers. Steve walked beside Fury, Anya walking behind the two, attempting to take in her surroundings. She had never seen anything as large as the ships were that was mobile and walking beneath them was almost overwhelming. She tried to focus on what Fury was saying as he continued speaking while walking ahead of her, "Three next-generation Helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites." She sped up to hear Fury better.
"Launched from the Lemurian Star?" Steve asked.
"Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down," ignoring Steve, Fury continued, "Continuous sub-orbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines."
"Stark?" Steve asked.
"Howard?" Anya questioned behind them, the name leaving her mouth before she realized it. The two turned to her and she tried to recover looking at Fury, "What? You mentioned him earlier when you were telling me about the SSR." Fury eyed her.
"No. His son, Tony. Howard died in '91 with his wife. Tony had a few suggestions once he got an up and close look at our old turbines," Fury said, turning back to the Helicarriers and moving on. Steve however was still watching her.
"I think you and I need to have a conversation," Steve said stepping close to her. She moved to walk past him and follow Fury, but he grabbed her arm before she could go much further. She stopped and looked up at Steve.
"I think we should be keeping up with Fury," Anya said looking toward Nick again. She nodded at the man leaving them behind, "Look, we're already losing him." Anya looked back at Steve and the two held eye contact, staring each other down for several seconds before he let her arm go. Anya took a deep breath and followed after Fury immediately, her heals clicking loudly against the floor as she walked. Steve sighed and followed after her.
"These new long-range precision guns can eliminate 1,000 hostiles a minute," Fury said turning and seeing them follow him onto one of the traveling bridges. He waited until they joined him at the railing before he continued, "The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."
"I thought the punishment usually came after the crime," Steve said, stopping to stand between Anya and Fury. Anya leaned against the railing as she looked up at the large guns on the Helicarrier.
"We can't afford to wait that long," Fury said, replying to Steve.
"Who's we?" Steve questioned.
"The people in charge of the guns," Anya said quietly. She turned to look at Fury as he continued, but noticed Steve was watching her. His attention drifted back to Fury, but Anya wondered if Steve had heard her.
"After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once, we're way ahead of the curve."
"By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection," Steve said skeptically.
"You know I read those SSR files," Fury said standing in front of Steve defensively, "'Greatest Generation'? You guys did some nasty stuff."
"Yeah, we compromised," Steve said standing up straight as if ready to fight back against Fury, "Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so that people could be free. This isn't freedom. This is fear."
"SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be," Fury countered, "And it's getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap."
"Don't hold your breath," Steve replied and began walking away.
"Maggie," he said, bidding Anya farewell as he walked past her.
"It's still Annie," she called after him and watched as he continued walking. Fury leaned against the rail next to her letting out an angry snort.
"He has a point, you know," she said after a moment, "I don't think this is what the founders would have wanted."
"Remind me, who were those founders?" he asked. She looked at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"The main three from the SSR, right? Peggy, Howard, and Colonel Phillips," she said looking back at the ships, "Now Phillips… He would have loved these."
"Hm," Fury hummed as he followed her gaze.
The knowledge he had given her on the founders had been brief. He had only mentioned their names a couple times before going down other rabbit holes of information. Nothing he told her would have been enough information to ascertain if Colonel Phillips would have liked the ships or not. Hell, Fury didn't have the slightest idea if he would have like them or not. The one-eyed man looked over at her again, his eye narrowing in thought.
He had read the SSR files.
He had also read all the files on Margaret Hargrove.
A longtime friend of Steve Rogers—longer actually than his friendship with Bucky—Margaret "Maggie" Hargrove had been the only woman in the Howling Commandos. She had excelled in her military training especially in her marksmanship—which later became key in various Howling Commandos missions—and she was almost as good of a soldier as she was a nurse. The young woman had watched a lot of death in her day, both by her own hand and by the hand of others.
When Fury had first read over her defection after the death of Bucky Barnes he had been surprised. It seemed out of place to call her actions defecting. He had poured over every mission—sanctioned or not—of hers and while going against orders to do what she believed was right wasn't out of the question, he couldn't imagine her running off to work for another government the moment the two people she was closest to had died. Especially when the few people left alive who were close to her were quoted in saying she wouldn't have defected.
Peggy Carter had been one of her closest friends left who believed her defection was falsified—and had quickly found evidence of it in a second letter and a box of dog tags of fallen soldiers. Peggy believed in Maggie so much she spent nearly twenty years of her career trying to track down the nurse turned Commando, only to continuously find dead ends in Russia. Years later when the Smithsonian opened an area dedicated to the Howling Commandos and Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter had insisted Margaret Hargrove was included.
Fury looked to Annie. He only vaguely remembered the picture of Maggie and found himself wondering if he felt they looked similar because Steve insisted, she was Maggie, or if it was because he really believed it. He suspected the truth was somewhere in the middle. Still, that would have made the woman in front of him nearly one-hundred years old. Although Steve Rogers existed. Maybe she could too.
"Anyone ever teach you to shoot, Annie?" he asked, testing the waters. She looked at him in confusion. They had been standing in silence for a couple minutes and the question seemed out of the blue.
"I learned somewhere along the way," she said with hesitation, "I've taken up playing with blades a bit more in the recent past."
"If you ever want to have someone train you, I have a couple agents in mind that would probably love to teach you," he said, "I could arrange it."
"I'll have to take you up on that sometime, Director Fury," she replied, smiling as she gave a single nod.
"Nick," he said, "My friends call me Nick."
"Are we friends now?" she teased with a coy smile, repeating his words from earlier in the day.
"Well," he said looking after Steve, "it's looking like a spot just opened up. Besides—" he looked at her again a smirk on his lips as he repeated her words from earlier in the day, "—I think you need one."
"Pierce told me you don't have friends," she said standing up straight, the teasing grin still perched on her lips, "Sounds rather out of character."
"Pierce wouldn't know," Fury said, "He's my oldest ally. I don't trust him."
"You know friends have an inherent trust of one another," she said looking at him, "That meatball sub must have really worked some magic."
"We can't take into account your distaste for my favorite sub," he said began, standing to fully face her as well, "But it seems like you're trying to tell me not so subtly that I shouldn't trust you."
"You told Steve upstairs that the last time you trusted someone you lost an eye," she said, but her playful smile faded as she continued on, "Besides, you really shouldn't trust me. For all you know, you could be the next in a long line of targets."
"You haven't killed me yet," he commented, "and hypothetically speaking you've had plenty of opportunities."
"Maybe it hasn't been the right one," she began, slowly stepping toward him like a tiger to her prey, "Maybe we haven't been alone enough for it to look like an accident. Maybe the shot was too convenient."
His eye narrowed as their gaze met. There was a certain spark her eyes normally held that was gone as she stared back at him. She stood close to him, and during her advancement he had put his hand on his holstered gun. She was almost an entirely different human from moments previous. She instead stood in front of him like a wild creature ready to kill him at any moment.
She had given herself away through the day and in a far from subtle fashion. He had his suspicions of Pierce before and she was all but telling Fury he was an assignment from the man. He would have to call in Hill for backup. Still Fury couldn't help but wonder why the woman in front of him had wanted him to know so much about her. He wanted to ask her, but she was already putting herself in extreme danger by being as blatant as she was.
"You're going to have to be a little clearer, Jackson," he grumbled at her, his hand leaving his pistol, "as to if I should trust you or not." She laughed sardonically and stepped away from him.
"One thing I've learned Nick? No one can be trusted. You can't even trust yourself." She looked away from him and back to the Insight Carrier.
"And," he said his one eye boring down on her, "keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer."
"Now that," she said, meeting his gaze one final time with a smile that verged on apologetic, "sounds much closer to what I've learned of you—" Anya looked at the guns again pointing to the closest one— "I can't wait for that thing to decimate half the planet." Before Fury could respond she walked off, just as Steve had.
Anya rode the elevator upstairs to the World Security Council which was at nearly the highest point of the Triskelion. Pierce was in his room, preparing to step into a WSC meeting. When he saw her through the glass of his door, his eyes darkened and narrow. He was irate.
"Having fun today?" he asked as she stepped into the room.
"More or less," she said, "I was coming up to let you know I'll see you back at the house. I have some business to take care of."
"Care to share?" he asked as he strode toward her. She stiffened as he stopped in front of her but continued on.
"No, I don't think so," she stated. She turned to leave but he grabbed her arm.
"Annie," he said, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle as she turned her head back to face him, "You will tell me what happened while the cameras were off in the elevator. Do you understand?"
"Da," she replied, a momentary slip of Serbian. She repeated herself in English as she turned away from him, hand on the door, "Yes."
"I'll see you at dinner then," he replied, smiling as he let go of her arm.
"I," she began, "don't know when I'll be back. I'll probably be late; you don't need to wait up for me."
She didn't give him any time to respond before she left.
"First floor," Anya said as she stepped into the elevator. She looked at the phone in her hand. After a couple of floors, she stopped the elevator and pulled out her phone.
She specifically avoided Pierce's messages to her, instead navigating her phone to connect to the SHIELD security system. She turned the camera off in the elevator before reaching into her bag and pulling out a small SHIELD tablet. She opened it up and saw a map of the Triskelion and a red blinking light near the middle of the building. She sighed as she looked at the tracker.
Fury was still in the building but had returned once again to his office. For being the spy, planting an edible tracker in his food had been far too easy. Anya had heard the way to a man's heart was food, but she had never before taken it so literal. She'd have to keep that in mind for future use. A smirk crossed her lips as she thought about trying something like that on the Winter Soldier.
Steve's words rang in Anya's mind and she thought about the man she had imagined in the wood the day before. Steve seemed convinced that she was this Maggie person. Maggie had been in love with a man named Bucky—she didn't know why but that name seemed right for the mirage man. So, assuming that Bucky was the mirage man, and he looked so much like the Winter Soldier, did that mean that the Winter Soldier was Maggie's Bucky? And if she was in fact Maggie, then was the Winter Soldier her Bucky—a long lost love?
She laughed aloud, but the laugh had barely escaped her lips when she stopped herself. On one hand, it seemed utterly ridiculous, on the other… She couldn't deny there was something between her and the Winter Soldier. There always had been. When she knew nothing else, she knew him.
She shook her head and sighed at herself. Her imagination was going wild and now was certainly not the time for it.
Anya closed the tablet cover and returned the tablet to her bag. Taking her phone out again, she checked the embedded Hydra network and saw there was a strange message popping up over and over again. She took a few moments to look over the encoded message, but her mind was muddled with frivolous thoughts. She sighed and closed out of the channels before restarting the camera and elevator.
She was nearly to the ground floor when sudden realization hit her like a bolt of lightning. The Winter Soldier was about to make his move on Fury. The thought had barely passed through her mind when the next came just as rapidly. The Winter Soldier would get Fury over her dead body.
When the elevator hit the ground floor she exited quickly, her heels clacking loudly against the marble floor. She was a woman on a mission now, but it wasn't the one she was meant for. Her parameters had changed. Fury was still her target, but her new goal was to keep him alive.
And if the Winter Soldier killed her in the process? She supposed that got rid of the long-lost love theory.