"Kennedy!" Colonel Phillips called as she breezed past them. The blonde whirled around to look at him, rage dripping from her body.

"Do not," she snarled before stalking off towards her tent. As the 107th celebrated the return of their men, the infamous Spitfire headed straight for her tent with Peggy hot on her heels. The walk back from the destroyed HYDRA base had been a silent one between the two Rogers' as they both fought against the onslaught of words that threatened to escape them. The second they came back to camp, Ada broke off and headed for the outskirts of camp.

"Ada," Peggy called. "Ada, please, let me explain."

The blonde let out a frustrated huff as she pulled out a leather satchel and started stuffing whatever she could find into it. The SSR might have her on their roster, but she could easily slip away and take on Schmidt herself without the strings of bureaucracy holding her back.

"Explain what?" Ada snapped when Peggy finally reached her tent. "That Abraham is dead and you didn't bother telling me? That my husband is the successful test you told me about? You. knew. his. name."

"You were in Stalingrad, we didn't have a way to contact you."

"Bullshit! You could have pulled me out."

"The mission was more important."

Ada huffed out a laugh and shook her head in disbelief. "That's all I'm good for, right. The mission. Do you not understand, Peggy? I am not the woman he married. I am not the person he knows. I am a monster."

"Erskine believed in you."

"Abraham is dead. What good is his opinion if I am still here, doing the work of the highest bidder as if I'm some hunting dog for you all?"

The rustling of fabric indicated the tent flaps being moved once more and both women looked up to find Steve entering. He nodded at Peggy in greeting and grasped the blue helmet in his hands awkwardly.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to my wife," he said. Ada paused in her packing and tossed the bag to the ground, turning to face him fully. Peggy glanced between the two of them before stepping out of the tent and heading back towards the main camp.

Ada avoided his eyes and instead took a seat on her cot, gesturing for him to do the same with the chair she had set up next to a desk. Steve gingerly lowered himself into the chair, clearly still getting used to his new body. She tilted her head slightly so she could study him out of the corner of her eye.

"I hear you were with him...when he was shot," she finally said. "You tried to stop the man."

"I failed. Cyanide."

"Of course. HYDRA can't face death with dignity. Thank you for trying."

An uncomfortable, oppressive silence fell over them and Ada let out a shaky breath. She had been trained, beaten, and had the idea ingrained into her head over and over again and yet here she was, actually scared for what would be said next.

"I didn't tell you because I wanted to forget about it. I wanted to...to not exist. To not be the person I was and be the person I could be. I'm selfish. I knew that when I was eventually called back, I wouldn't be coming back to you," she admitted, bringing her green eyes up to meet him. He looked at her with no judgement and Ada wanted to absolutely scream. For all the mistakes she could have made, marrying a kind man was probably the worst one.

"What do you mean you wouldn't be coming back?"

"I work until HYDRA is destroyed or I am. I go to war, I do what I was made to do, and all you would know me as is your wife and that's it."

"So I was just a plaything? Some temporary fix?" He crossed his arms over his chest and she huffed out a bitter laugh.

"You weren't part of the equation," she replied softly. "I wasn't supposed to marry. I was just there to work with Abraham on the serum."

"So you married me because I was least likely to go to war and find out your secret?"

"God, Steve, no!" The blonde ran a hand over her face. "I did the one thing I was trained to never do, I fell in love with you. I was...I am a fool to think that I could have a normal life. That I could be loved just the same."

He stared at her with those bright blue eyes that she saw so many times in her dreams and Ada swallowed past the growing lump in her throat. The serum amplified everything about him except his eyes. Those had always been some haunting memory on the vestiges of her mind, reminding her of the failure she had completed by saying a vow to him.

"Explain it to me from the beginning," he finally said. "You owe me that much."

"You're not supposed to know." An automatic phrase that spilled from her lips.

"And I'm also not supposed to be six feet tall and you're not supposed to be here. There's a lot of things we're not supposed to be. You said that the fight was between you and Schmidt. Why?"

Ada blew out a long breath, her hand reaching out to grasp the worn gas mask that sat on her cot next to her. She ran her fingers down the stitches on the side of it before she finally spoke again.

"My parents...I hardly remember their names now. They were good people. Did everything they could to keep my little brother and I happy even as the country was falling apart. I was born three years after the Revolution and yet we were still trying to learn how to simply survive. There was the fact, of course, that they were Jews.

There were small attacks against Russian Jews but people really took the idea of an atheistic country to heart. I was five when they set fire to our apartment building. My father lowered me down to the neighbors who helped me escape. My family wasn't as lucky. They had barricaded doors to upper floors."

"You never told me you were Jewish." It wasn't an accusation but rather a question embedded in his statement.

"And you never pray the rosary in front of me," she pointed out. "My parents were Jewish. I...once you have seen and done the things I have seen and done, you realize that there is no God to save you."

"What happened next?"

"I was taken to an orphanage of course. No food, minimal bedding, rats everywhere. So when a woman came to the orphanage looking to adopt a few girls to work at her boarding house, I thought none the wiser. The boarding house was just a front for a program developed among the Soviet underbelly to train girls to ensure victory. War was already brewing once more in Europe and they wanted to be assured that they wouldn't have to pull out like last time. That the Motherland would be secure through Project Drema.

I thought it was just training. We all did. But as we got older, some of the trials became executions. Those who couldn't keep up were put down. I...I still remember the fear in her eyes."

A faraway look overtook her green eyes and she blinked a few times to regain her senses. "I was the only one to survive the training and the serum. The headmistress, Marina, developed the serum with her father. It's nowhere near as strong as the one given to you, but it was a serum nonetheless. What they lacked in serum development, they made up for in training.

They tested it out when I was fourteen by sending me on my first mission. A simple one, really. To put down a party member who was giving them too much trouble. What they didn't tell me was that I would have to take out his family as well. I knew it was either them or me and the death that waited for me if I failed was one of pure torture. So I did it."

"Ada…"

"Don't. I served them for two years before I found a way out. I ran and I ran like hell. I knew they would come for me but it would be worth it. I had plenty of training under my belt and I was ready to run until they found me, however long it took. And then I met Abraham. He took me in, gave me a home, and told everyone I was his niece. He used the baseline of the serum in my blood to develop a new one in an attempt to help take it out of me. Hitler and Schmidt had a different idea."

"So you two ran."

"I played the part of demure niece pretty well. The HYDRA guards got lazy. I killed them all and got Abraham out of there. The SSR recruited us, flew us out to America, and set us up in a lab to continue working on it. Perfecting it. To create...you. And then I met you in the museum."

"What's the difference between you and me?"

"You are a soldier, Steve. The perfect American hero. I am...worse than a spy. I plant lies and steal secrets, I torture and kill for information and hell, not even for information. Whatever I'm ordered to do, I do."

His eyes lifted to stare at some empty spot of canvas above her head. She could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to process everything. Ada shifted slightly and clasped her hands together.

"How did you get the serum?" she asked.

"I lied," he said with a tinge of humor. "Once you left and America joined the war, I kept trying to join. Bucky gave me plenty of shit for it so you don't have to. Erskine caught me and decided to give me a chance."

Her lips curled up into the smallest hint of a smile. "Abraham was always a good judge of character."

"Why were you there at the warehouse? Phillips told you no."

"Phillips told you no as well and I recall us both being there."

"Ada." Stern but not a chastisement. She shrugged.

"Bucky's your best friend. I wasn't going to leave him there. Again, either HYDRA ends or I do."

"Is that really your only two options?"

"Either that or I go back to Drema. They're eager to have me back."

He leaned back in the chair and shrugged. "Why not freedom? No Drema, no HYDRA. We end this war and go home."

"You are always the optimist," she said dryly. "Why aren't you mad at me? I figured you'd be furious. I lied to you multiple times. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good wife."

"Why should I be mad? It sounds like you didn't have a choice."

Ada paused, her thoughts faltering as she processed his words. Steve took that as a chance to stand and stretch, heading for the exit. He looked back at her and the dirt that smudged against her cheek and the blood that still stained her uniform.

"I'm not going back to Brooklyn without you and Bucky," he said quietly. She looked up at him with those bright green eyes that hypnotized him just like they did the day they met.

"Your hubris will kill you," she replied calmly.

"And you have no fatal flaw of your own?"

"I was built to not have one."

"I should check on Buck at the med tent. Are you still planning to leave?" The bag she had started to pack laid on the floor at his feet.

"No," she whispered.

"Things might have changed but the vows I took haven't."

When she finally looked up, he was gone.

The next morning, Ada found herself in Phillips' tent shifting her weight from foot to foot. The gas mask dangled from her hand loosely as she waited for the meeting to start. Steve leaned against a table across from her and Peggy stood in between the married couple.

"Kennedy, we need you to ship out today to rendezvous with a few Resistance fighters in Paris," Phillips announced. The blonde nodded sharply, standing straighter at his order.

"No."

The single word rippled through the tent and sent silence across the fabric. Everyone looked to Steve who calmly crossed his arms over his chest and stared down Phillips.

"Excuse me?" the Colonel asked.

"Respectfully, sir, she just returned from another mission and needs to rest. Agent Kennedy won't be any help to you if she's dead on her feet." His eyes trailed over her form, noticing the stretch of her pale skin over bone rather than the muscles that he used to run his hands along. Her cheeks were hollowed with emaciation and yet they honestly were going to send her out into the field again.

"If we're going to London, I would like Agent Kennedy to accompany me," he finished. Colonel Phillips slowly nodded and tossed the papers he had in his hands onto the desk.

"Kennedy, you'll be joining us in London then. Dismissed."

Peggy looked to her fellow agent to find the blonde looking completely confused. Ada pushed off of the desk and followed Steve out of the tent, hurrying to catch up with his longer stride.

"What was that?" she demanded. "Why did you do that?"

"Winter of 39, you didn't leave my side for six straight days and nights even when Bucky offered to take over. I trust your judgement and if we're going to do this...take down HYDRA and Drema, then I want you on my side."

They faced off one another, their eyes locked in some sort of battle. No one had ever stood up for her when she was ordered out except for Abraham. She had been fatigued but was willing to push through it. But now, standing here in front of the one man who had defended her time and time again, Ada realized just how tired and hungry she was. Any argument slipped from her brain and she wet her lips before speaking.

"We should pack for London," she finally said.