"Well?"
"I'm trying to decide if I should trust you," Marlow said calmly.
No cameras… she thought, but that didn't mean there aren't bugs.
"Trust has nothing to do with it. You are being interrogated, right now peacefully. If you want to keep it peaceful, you'll start talking."
She knew she couldn't tell the truth. Knowing the shit they were up to, there's a good chance they would believe interdimensional time-travel, and the last thing her timeline needed was Hydra jumping around.
"Hail Hydra," she said simply.
His posture didn't shift, but there was a spark of realization in his eyes. Like he was trying to determine whether he could trust her to actually be Hydra. Whether it was safe to pull down his own façade.
"What base are you stationed at?"
Safe question. Safe enough that if someone were listening, it would merely be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent trying to crack one of their biggest rivals.
Her mind worked quickly, pulling up a location far enough away that he likely never interacted with, but large enough that he would know of it. "Nevada."
"What is their function?"
He's not dropping.
"Intel and outsourcing."
"How did you breach their security to learn that?"
"I didn't. I'm telling the truth."
"That information isn't hard to come by; any half-able grunt could have figured it out. Tell me, how did you figure it out?"
"I work there, is how."
"You wouldn't have come by that suit in Nevada."
She'd forgotten she was no longer only wearing the pencil skirt and blouse. No, she was covered by a black suit, bedecked with white armor plates and a black A emblazoned on the breast.
"And if you had, anyone befitting a suit like that wouldn't have been caught."
"Unless I was fed the wrong information," she evaded. "My mission was to come here and extract one of those vials. I was told Doctor Pym would be out, and that the base would be expecting me. Low and behold, I get here and I'm faced with the barrel end of a gun, Joseph."
His head cocked to the side as he watched her, irritation evident on his face. "What little you know of me means nothing. Am I supposed to believe you because you know my name? Because you have basic information on a base?"
"I know quite a bit. I know that after the war, 1500 Nazi scientists were hired into federal positions under the US government in exchange for being pardoned. Thanks to Arnim Zola, Hydra grew within S.H.I.E.L.D., and that's why you're here, at Camp Lehigh—the birthplace of S.H.I.E.L.D. and an undercover Hydra. Since then, we've grown, we've assassinated people; Kolchak, Kennedy, Rostov, Hauser. I know about Operation Iliad, I know about Project Elemental, we orchestrated the Cuban Missile Crisis, I know about the battles of Henry. Are those things that a random grunt would know? That a random enemy grunt could find?"
He continued watching her, resolve evidently chipping away but not without annoyance—likely for being kept out of the loop about such an infiltration. Silently, he stood, hands going behind his back before turning, pulling in a slow breath.
She used the moment to tap on her gauntlet, hastily inputting the coordinates home before he turned again, eyes once again boring into her.
"I can't deny you know quite a bit, although much of it seems… related. Tell me, what happened during the Korean War."
The war?
She wracked her brain.
"Hydra had a hand in it. Different Op's," she said carefully. "They orchestrated it, like a lot of wars."
"With your knowledge, I'd have thought you would know exactly which Op I was referring to. Would the date spark something maybe? July second, nineteen-fifty-one."
"That must have been above my rank," she covered coolly, trying to keep a level head at being found out. Because she knew. And she had little wiggle room left to talk her way out.
"Interesting, considering the Kennedy and Kolchak assassinations, Operation Iliad, and two battles of Henry were all the same clearance level—and all have one thing in common."
The Winter Soldier.
There was a banging at the door then, and Marlow jumped, eyes tearing away from Richardson's, who stood with a satisfied smirk on his lips. He stalked to the door, not sparing a glance at the still dripping mess of red liquid on the wall.
This is an Ant-Man suit right? Couldn't I just shrink if I have a little juice left?
Maybe. Or I could get stuck in the Quantum Realm because I don't have enough.
Really should have asked for a crash course on this suit, she thought pointedly.
The door opened and a million thoughts ran through her mind.
"Well?" Hank's voice asked pointedly from the hall.
"You were supposed to be returned to your lab. Anyways, she's confessed and is a threat to this base. We are transporting her to a secure location for questioning. Thank you for bringing her in. Erik, make sure he goes and stays in his lab."
"Figure out who sent her—my research is too dangerous to get into the wrong hands," Hank ordered, voice growing quieter.
Fuck.
It was the only word within in her head, repeating over and over.
"Now," Richardson said, shutting the door and turning back to Marlow, "you have thirty seconds to explain who you are. It won't change anything other than how much pain you're going to be in."
"I've told you who I am."
"No, you've told me lies. Who are you and who sent you?"
She remained silent. Easier than lying and safer than opening her mouth. It also gave her time to glimpse the gun in his pocket, along with the ring of keys.
If she could get away from him, she could disengage her suit, maybe get back to the lab and explain to Hank what happened. She knew stuff about him and his research that she could possibly convince him. Better chancing it with him than anyone else, and better than sticking around with this guy.
"Fifteen seconds."
She kept her silence, psyching herself up mentally.
"Not going to talk? That won't last long."
He grabbed for her, and she let her body's movements turn instinctual, imagining herself training with Nat in an abandoned building, hands chained down in case she were ever in this exact situation.
Marlow stood from the chair, kicking it aside before wrapping her foot around Natasha's ankle to pull her close to the table. Before Marlow could wrap the chains around her neck though, Natasha slunk away, grabbing Marlow by the back of the head, and directing her into the table.
She ducked to the side, avoiding getting the table to the nose—
Except she didn't that time.
She hit hard enough that her vision turned white, but she didn't let it stop her for long. She let one hand remain on the table while the other reached behind her, grabbing for the gun at the agent's waist. Instead, her fingers wrapped around keys.
Good enough.
As the agent kicked her leg from under her, Marlow unclipped the ring and shuffled the keys, letting them settle between her knuckles before throwing her fist back and catching the agent in the side. He let out a pained grunt, backing off an inch before wrapping an arm around her throat. She attempted to hit him again, but his other hand blocked the keys from landing a hit to the face, squeezing, and twisting until there was a searing pain in her hand that makes it go limp.
She threw her head back, catching his lip and wiggling, but his grip didn't budge. She repeated, but the agent learned, forcing her chest-first against the table, arms trapped beneath her while her face pressed into the cold metal.
His arm tightened around her neck and she tried to take a breath but it only ended in her gaping like a beached fish.
Her heart hammered in her ears, arms weakly trying to escape—so she could escape.
But she couldn't.
"That's right, go to sleep."