Chapter 20: One Time in Kabul II
What the hell just happened? This isn't the plan! Shit!
She drives the remaining two miles and comes to the gate of the property. Armed guards appear behind it, yelling at her to get out of the car and remove her burka. She opens the door, and the gate swings open, and she hurries and flings off the heavy material, exposing her face to the AK 47. A guard not holding his gun to her has a photograph in his hand, and he's looking back and forth between it and her.
"It's her," he says in Farsi.
"Where's Natalia?" she asks and the man laughs, cupping her chin and dragging his thumb across her cheek. His gaze his appreciative, and really, he should get out more. She looked better after the Soldier beat her to a pulp that one time in Sokovia.
"Pity," he continues. "It's a work of art."
From the side, abrupt movement from one of the guards flings himself at her face, a wickedly curved knife gripped in his fist.
"Stop!" she shouts.
The man stiffens in place, the blade centimeters from her cheek, a snarl on his lips. Amdaal really, really should've given the order to kill her on sight.
Hermione flies into his head and takes control and then she's onto the next guard, hopping from man to man, overriding their control boards with a direct and solid push of her power. They are all hers for the taking in a matter of seconds and what a feeling to have a unit of complete loyalty in such short notice.
The feeling isn't a pure sensation. She's not drunk or high off her abilities. Her feelings are muddled. She still feels their distaste and hate for her underlying the hijacking. It's in a stasis. Put on a hold as responsibility and the crippling weight of fear and belief in their master and god lifts from them. If anyone is blessed with high-altitude catharsis by her abilities, it's them.
"Escort me, gentlemen," she starts, "to Amd—"
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
Said gentlemen drop like flies around her, and there's the Soldier running towards her, battle mask in place and mangled mop flowing in the warm wind. He barely glances her way as he rounds the corner, through the threshold of the open gate. The arm not holding his rifle gestures at her to follow.
"Come on!" he shouts at her in Russian.
She scrambles to her feet and grabs her backpack from the car before sprinting after him, gaping, and pissed as hell. So now he's going through with the plan, is he?
"I had them!" she yells, catching up to him to grab his Glock 19 from his holster. It's ill-fit for her hands, but she can't be picky.
"Didn't look like it to me," he argues, not even breaking speed as he kicks in the door.
"I did. And you ran off. Why did you run off?"
"I didn't trust your satellite image. I needed to see what was going on with my own eyes." He's running up the stone steps, and Hermione's got his six. So far, no one to be seen…
In the corner of her eye, she sees little bodies run from one room to another at the end of the hallway on their left.
"Children." She eyes him and his firearm warily. "I'll check it out. Keep a lookout. If you see Cruz-Gesenko, kill him."
"What about Amdaal?"
"Especially him."
"Romanoff?"
"Don't kill her." She turns her back to him. "I've got coms in my pack. Get them out."
The Soldier unzips the pack and finds them, shoving one into his ear and handing her the other. She wedges it into her canal, flicks it on, opening and rotating her jaw to clear the static and tingles itching up her eardrum.
"What if Romanoff is hostile?"
"You shot her not three days ago. She's not going…" She lets out a breath. Three days of healing means nothing to the Chelintsov program. "If she's conscious, tranq her. Make sure she doesn't see you. But your focus is Cruz-Gesenko. Kill anyone besides Romanoff who gets in your way. Go."
He checks the two nearby bedrooms, finding them empty before hustling downstairs. She goes down the hallway where she saw the shadows of children, pressing her back against the wall. She focuses on the barrier, zoning into the wavelengths of her abilities and breaking passed it. Her earpiece crackles and whines form the interference. There are busy, frightened minds belonging to three women, two children, and a teenage boy. Cousins of Amdaal. Wives to the dead men outside. The women are armed as is the teenager.
They're waiting for her.
Hermione's not concerned. She backs away from the door, getting out of the hallway. There's nothing for her here. When she reaches the top of the steps, the door opens and the teenage boy—no older than thirteen—bursts out with his firearm going off.
"You killed my father! You killed my father!" he screams in Farsi, and she falls a few steps down the stairs to get out of the way.
His aim is terrible for such a narrow passageway before him. He's young, though, and the gun likely weighs a third of his own body weight. He does manage to graze her arm. She hisses at the wound. The firing of the weapon stops, and she hears clumsy footfalls hitting the floor, coming closer.
"Stop!" The whine of her earpiece resurfaces, higher-pitched, and she yanks it out. The tiny device releases a tiny stream of smoke, and she's sees an electric spark coming from a splinter in the enamel. She frowns and then pockets the useless thing and turns her attention back to the boy. He's frozen atop of the stairs, gun strap loosely hanging off him and the muzzle of the firearm pointing towards the ceiling.
"Go back to the room," she orders in Farsi. "Tell the others it's not safe to leave."
"Yes," he agrees, his chin trembling. His teenage spirit is surprisingly strong under her control. He's fighting hard and is not complacent under the weightlessness of her oppression like the men were.
"But before you go. Where's your uncle?"
He gurgles, his dark eyes wide and watery. A tear slips down his cheek. His teeth willfully chatter. He's trying to bite his tongue.
"He's not a good man, Kardaar." She hears his breath hitch. "That's your name, right? He's not. He hurts people."
"You're not good," he grinds out.
He's not complying. He's forcing himself against her. Not just trying to move from his frozen position but against her powers. No one has been able to do that. No one has been able to since 54.
A pressure scrapes across her frontal lobe, and she takes a step down. "You're like me," she accuses.
"No. I'm much worse."
Violent vibrations travel up her legs, and she instinctively grips the metal banister. Much of the property is made of stone, and dust spills from the cracks.
"What are you doing?"
"It's coming," he says.
She aims her gun at him. "What is?"
"I can't stop it now."
She flicks off the safety of the gun. The entire property is shaking, and she can hear the women and children screaming down the hallway. Kadaar now seems to vibrate, and the black-ish brown of his eyes fade into a translucent color. Wispy black matter erupts from him, almost engulfing him. It billows and retract, taking on a high-pitched hissing sound.
Hermione pulls the trigger. The agitated black mist contracts and abruptly thins, colliding with the walls and ceiling. It rattles the house and breaks the windows downstairs. Sheets of dust fall from the ceiling from the momentum, and she rolls backwards down the stairs, hitting the main floor and getting to her feet. She doesn't glance up at the boy's body but does file away this memory for a later time because what the hell was that? What was he?
Door after door she opens until she finds a set of stairs leading downwards.
"Soldier," she calls out.
At the bottom of the staircase, she can either go left or right. Her eyes sink to the trail of bodies in both directions. Armed men quickly cut down by the Soldier's impeccable aim and agility. The hallways are long and seem to stretch on forever, becoming deep tunnels underground. She follows one of the trails. The ping of a silenced firearm coming from behind her catches her attention, and she turns. Two clips hit her side, and an electrical charge surges through like chunks of white hot gravel hitting her bones and scratching her veins.
Her vision goes dark.
Submerged almost to her chin in icy water and only in her underwear is how she wakes up. In a rectangular tub, her wrists are stretched anchored to the ledges, and her ankles are manacled and secured to the bed of it. Water laps at her chin. Her vision is filmy, and everything is too heavy. Her head, her limbs, her body. It takes all her strength in keeping her head up to stop from drowning. On her side, she sees an IV rack and the five different bags coming together into one thick tube attached to the crease of her left arm.
Drugs. Loads and loads of drugs.
She can't break the cuffs on her wrists or ankles.
On the opposite side is a machine, the circuit board is made up of dials and knobs. Four sturdy wires are connected to it and float atop the water. Her eyes follow their path until she concludes they are just as much connected to her, too. She now sticky patches at the top of her spine, at the base, and behind each knee.
"You're awake. Good."
Hermione turns her head slightly, a brown masculine hand dipping fingers in the water. Her eyes travel up the length of the naked arm which is attached to a trim, naked torso. Amdaal grins down at her murderously and looking as whole and unhurt and so unlike the state she left him in.
"How?"
He circles the tub, and her falls to his back, surgical scars marring the spine. Nestled at the base of his spine is a device. A device structured like a centipede. Pure HYDRA tech and last she heard, the technology was still in prototype phase.
Hermione widens her eyes in alarm, and she regards him in horror. "Where did you get that?"
"Where do you think?"
"John Garrett," she says. The second mole. But that doesn't make sense at all.
He looks down at her. "So that's his name? I just know him as The Clairvoyant."
Her body's useless, and her mind more than half gone, but she's able to catch a glimpse of Amdaal's dealings and sees the pilfering of a cousin's nest egg and funding Garrett's small operation in exchange for the Centipede prototype. She struggles to dig deeper, to hurt him even, but a sharp pain blooms in her skull. Garrett has no real idea who this man is or about his ties to Al Quade. He has no idea he's being used to gather intel on HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. He became an unknowing backdoor for his client.
"Wonder what he'll think when he finds out about you. Harassing and torturing a fellow comrade as well as skimming off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s bank accounts."
Amdaal. "He should be more careful. I'm sure his superiors won't be too happy when they find out about his alter ego. Selling western technology to the enemy."
Her teeth start to chatter. The water's freezing, but it's keeping her alert enough. Silver linings. "Why the drugs?"
"You need to be subdued. It's hard to forget how a little thing like you broke my back like a pencil, Rebekah. I hope it's all right if I still call you that."
She lets out a sigh. "You should've had your men kill me the moment I pulled up, Amdaal."
"Maybe. But having you come all the way here just to gun you down on sight would've been boring. This is so much better. I'm going to have you begging for death. Do you know what you're in?"
Yes, but she shows no fear.
More Than Meets the Eye comes to mind.
"Where's Natalia?"
"Where's Kadaar?" he hisses, bracing flexed arms on the ledge of the tub. "Killing my men is one thing, but my nephew? Were my parents not enough for your blood-thirst? Your spider's dead. The man you brought along will join her soon."
"And Cruz-Gesenko?"
"I haven't decided what I'll do with him, yet. He possesses a considerable sum I'd really, really like to have for myself. I could drain him, but he's sitting on more than just a bank account. Isn't he?" Amdaal chuckles. "Now I'm sure your sweet Natalia was enough for you to come to the rescue, but you had to have promised much more to come out here as fast as you did. What's he to S.H.I.E.L.D.? Why was Romanoff taking him to Russia? I've interrogated him. Tortured him to the brink of death, and he won't speak."
"I don't know."
He nods patronizingly. He doesn't believe her because he's not an idiot anymore. She broke his stupidity simultaneously with his spine. "I thought as much," he says and puts a hand on the machine next to the IV rack. "But I have ways of making the clueless feel inspired."
On top of the machine is a bit which he shoves into her mouth before flicking on the machine. It whirs to life, and he twists the dial.
For most of Hermione's life, she's been subjugated to all kinds of torture. She thought she knew pain before.
She'd been wrong.
"Everyone has a breaking point, Rebekah." He removes the bit. "Even you. We've been at this for twenty minutes. Your heart can't take much more. All you have to do is tell me what Cruz-Gesenko is to S.H.I.E.L.D., and we can find another more...pleasurable activity. I still have that whip. You liked it, didn't you?"
His fingers dance from the top of her spine to below her shoulder blades, snapping the thick strap of her sports bra.
"Not as much as I like this," she says. "Baby, I wished you did this to me before. I wouldn't have left in such a huff."
"Oh, how I've missed that sass, Rebekah."
He turns the dial higher. Hermione considers dropping her face and inhaling. He's right. Everyone's got a breaking point, but her limit means suicide, not confession. She's HYDRA. She'll die before she tells him anything that could compromise S.H.I.E.L.D.'s true nature.
Static, garbled words echoes throughout the dimly lit room, and Amdaal leaves her sight.
"What's going on?" he asks.
"The man who came with the Widow," replies a frail, pain-stricken voice, "is dead. Everyone's dead. I've been shot. I'm not going to make it, cousin."
Hermione lets out a sigh, tugging at her restraints uselessly. Part of a heavy weight has been removed from her chest. She doesn't know if Natalia's alive or not, but she's willing to let go now. HYDRA won't be revealed. Her orders to the Soldier were to kill Cruz-Gesenko and save Natalia, not her. If he couldn't do the second, his mission's over and he can contact his handlers. They'll meet at a rendezvous point, and her corpse'll be here.
Aside from whether Natalia is still kicking, the most unfortunate thing about this whole ending is that Amdaal will live.
Hermione expects Amdaal to stomp up the machine and twist the dial to the highest charge. Instead, she sees the years have taught him quiet anger. He's calm when he comes to sit on the ledge of the tub, and his hand is gentle when resting on the back of her head.
"Even now I still adore you, Rebekah," he tells her. His fingers stroke her wet hair. "I'm a weak man. You besotted me in the beginning and as much as I hate you, I love you with every fiber of my being." His voice cracks. "All but few of my family are dead. Because of you, and I still…" He coils his fingers around her hair, yanking. "I still want to keep you. It's pathetic, but I still believe I can tame you, given time. I could make you love me."
Apparently, she didn't break his stupidity enough.
"Just kill me," she mutters.
Amdaal's silence is pensive. After a while, he exhales tiredly. "My life has been nothing but hell since you wounded me. The device of The Clairvoyant's aids me to walk yet does nothing for the pain. I am in constant agony, Rebekah, and the device won't keep me on my feet forever. Either it will glitch or The Clairvoyant will come and rip it from my body after finding out the truth. He'll hunt me down and leave me in a worse state than you did. He won't spare the precious few I have left. Perhaps it's time we both go."
He lets go of her hair and flicks the switch. Over the deafening sound of her agony, she barely hears the sound of a gunshot. With her eyes closed, she doesn't see the water darken from Amdaal's blood, nor his upper half hunched over in the tub. The pistol he used hits the bottom of it.
There's no point in fighting any longer. She spits out her bit and inhales.
Hail HYDRA!
Consciousness is an excruciating experience. Her insides burn, and her chest aches. Her stomach feels torn. Water dribbles from her mouth as she lay curled on her side, the dirty cement floor cool on her skin. As her mind starts to sort things out, her eyes focus, and there are black-clad knees in front of her face. When her coughing subsides, she rolls on to her back and gazes up at the Soldier who's hunched over her too close.
He came back for her.
Her hand comes to her chest, tender to the touch and then to her lips. He gave her CPR.
"You saved me." Every muscle in her body screams as she sits up, and the Soldier's metal palm rests on her mid-back, supporting her.
He doesn't apologize for disobeying orders. His fingers touch her chin, thumbing the skin there and over her jawline. It's an intimate gesture and should jumpstart her in a panic, but she almost died. She almost died, and he saved her. It's one thing to come back and find her but another to resuscitate her.
She cups his face. "You saved me," she repeats.
Years from that moment, they'll argue about who made the first move. James will accuse her of kissing him, and he's right, though she'll never admit it. They'll also argue about what follows. Out of everything Hermione has done to him, he'll never get passed this one thing.
Their lips meet.
It's not a kiss out of the movies or novels. Music doesn't play in the background, and the moment doesn't last forever. The credits don't roll. In fact, their kiss lasts but a few seconds because she hears scuffling coming from the tunnel-like hallway.
"I contacted my handlers after completing my mission," reveals the Soldier. "There was a unit doing a flyover close by."
Before either of them can even stand at attention, Brock and Sanderson enter the room. Hermione clamors away from the Soldier and crawls towards Brock, unknowingly devastating the former. Brock helps her to her feet while his partner approaches the Soldier.
"Cruz-Gesenko is dead. Romanoff is alive," reports the Soldier. "She's further down the tunnel."
"You did good, Soldier," says Sanderson.
Hermione wraps her arms around Brock's neck, burying her face in his shoulder and unable to stop the flinch at the sound of Sanderson tranquilizing the Soldier. She hears him fall to the pavement with a thud.
Her lips are still tingling.
The quinjet touches down on the Lemurian Star long enough to shuttle two gurneys onboard. It's the closest base, and both she and Natalia need immediate medical attention. Amdaal had kept her alive, but barely so. While Hermione recovers in the medical bay, resting and stewing alone with her guilt of being unable to relieve the Soldier of his treacherous existence, Natalia suffers two surgeries.
Unsurprisingly, Hermione heals first and by the end of the week, she's scheduled to return to work. The morning of, she wakes to find Natalia in her tiny cabin, perched beside her on the mattress. She's dressed in soft, loose clothing, and her skin is pale and green eyes are tired.
"You came for me," she says, her voice barely above a whisper.
Hermione sits up, not missing a beat. "If anyone's going to kill you, it's going to be me."
Natalia half smiles, but it falters. It's just them in this tiny cabin of Hermione's. There's no need to be strong when there's every reason to be vulnerable.
"I thought," Natalia sucks in sharply, "I was going to die. I was in and out of consciousness all the time and one of the few times I was awake, Amdaal told me I was bate. It was just to lure you there. I didn't believe for a second you'd come for me. Why would you?"
Hermione doesn't indulge Natalia but watches her critically eye their surroundings, an unimpressed wrinkle under her left eye. Her cabin is tiny, consisting of a bed and dresser in one, a sink, and the shallowest closet known to man.
"You should transfer to Washington. We could be," she swallows, "roommates again. Once you've given your report, Fury will be begging you to join his team."
"I went over him directly to Pierce, and the operation didn't go over as smoothly as we initially planned."
"Cruz-Gesenko is dead," states Natalia. "That's on me, not you."
His death was the one thing that went right. Everything else went south. Hermione got captured and and tortured with her super-strength, abilities, and all. Pierce was right. She's a malfunction. Even hand-to-hand, she can't beat the Winter Soldier. Her one saving grace is how she won't be taking all the brute of it. John Garrett will have his share.
"It's not like they're going to fire you," supplies Natalia. She sweeps another look around the cabin. "And I can't see how they can demote you further."
"Mailroom, Level 3."
Natalia stares blankly. It's her horrified look if you know her well enough to recognize it.
"I think", Hermione says slowly, "nothing'll really change. I'll get reprimanded and be suspended for six months from Level 5. Then everything will go back to normal." She looks down at her lap, smiling sadly. "I'm not sure I'm cut out for fieldwork anymore."
"You need a partner. We haven't done a gig together in a long time, you and I."
"I think Barton will get jealous."
"I'm serious. You coming for me didn't go as bad as you think, and you're wasted here."
"I do good work interrogating."
"So do I." Natalia exhales softly. "If Fury does offer you a way of this boat, you're taking it."
"We both know that's not going to happen, Natalia."
The woman flinches at the name. "I wish you'd call me Natasha."
"Whiting it out and writing something else doesn't change who you are. It's doesn't change what you've done." Hermione leans closer to her. "Do you think these people—S.H.I.E.L.D.—look at you and are relieved they're dealing with Romanoff instead of Romanova?"
"I'm sticking to the name," she says. "And these people are our people."
Hermione smiles bitterly. "We both play nice to avoid prison, and we've made friends along the way but don't get too attached. Barton. He doesn't even know half of what you've done. You think he'll be so fond of you if he finds the rest? What about his wife?"
Natalia gives her a considering look. "I'll never figure out how you do that…that Sherlock Holmes deduction crap."
"You do it."
The woman chuckles. "Not like you. Fury could use you out in the field. Fresh on the scene instead of straggling behind with S.T.R.I.K.E., dealing with scraps. No one can do what you do."
That's not true. That boy at the compound. 54, wherever she is. She's not alone and the confrontation she had with that boy is something she lied about on her report. She's not even going to tell Pierce, unable to see what good it would do. The boy's dead. Pierce would shrug it off, tell her she'd been distraught, and her memories are muddled because of emotional stress. Or he could accept the story as truth and patronize her for believing herself to be special.
"No one can do what you do," Hermione hits back eventually. Her five o'clock alarm beeps on her watch. It's time to get to work.
London
Soo-jin's heeled boots click on the slick sidewalk. Her nerves are on edge. She hasn't been to Muggle London since she was eighteen. She takes a turn, losing the hustle and bustle of pedestrians and coming to an empty street with a single telephone booth on it. She gets inside and picks up the receiver, plainly stating her business.
The atrium of the ministry is vacant given the time. The sound of her boots echoes in the vast emptiness, and she slips inside an elevator. She grips a strap and goes for a ride, getting out at a narrow, tiled hallway. Unspeakable Nott is at the end of said hallway, looking particularly dodgy in the dimly lit stretch. He's got a thin manila envelope in one hand.
Halfway to him, he says, "I don't trust you."
"What did you find?"
"I have half a mind to turn this around on you."
"What. Did. You. Find?"
Nott clicks his tongue. He's not intimidated by her. Not many English folk from his generation are. War and this job tends to desensitize people, and in appearance, she's got nothing on Tom Riddle. Back home, however, she runs the show. Her people both respect and fear her.
"Oh, all sorts of things," supplies Nott. "Consider me a partner in your investigation if you want to see what's inside."
"After the very Muggle massacre we walked in on in Kabul, I thought your boss gave you the hell no."
"This will be," he pauses, "an off-books project."
"I have lackeys, not partners." She makes a quick grab for the file, and the moment her fingers make contact, it dissolves into black and green wisps.
Nott laughs. "This is exciting, Soo-jin. You've gotten yourself wrapped up in a fascinating conspiracy, and I want in. We catch this thing, I'll be promoted to head of the department. Not to mention the story's worth to the media."
"You don't need money. You come from old blood. Old money."
"I need positive public recognition. The war tarnished my family's name."
"Your father did that." She juts out her hip, folding her arms. She scans the length of him, sizing him up in more ways than one. He wouldn't be an unattractive partner if she did take up his offer. He could be, like, her pet or something. Certainly nothing more, and she'd have to be careful on keeping the truth from him, but it's been easy enough so far.
The thing is, she needs that file and a steady source. She doesn't have access to anything of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Magic, and it's been a setback since she started the investigation in tracking down 17. England is 17's homeland. The new girl with the ved'ma scar and English lilt who called herself…
"I need to see that file," she tells Nott.
17's true name. It's evaded Soo-jin all these years. She's extracted the memory, analyzed and stressed over it in a Pensieve repeatedly and still she can't recall. The rush of the water's loud. The pipes creak. The other children chatter. 17's mouth is soundless as it forms her true title. Soo-jin has scribbled possible names that could match up with the lip formations, but none of them are right. She'll know once she hears it. Once she sees it.
"You're hiding something," Nott alleges. "I'll be willing to overlook that as long as you don't make it much more obvious. Stand by your claim you're obsessed with this theory for only curiosity's sake, and we should get along fine. If you can't manage, and I find this investigation is dirty enough to best be tossed, I'll withdraw my partnership and my assets. The envelope. It's just the tip of the iceberg."
Sokovia
Strucker mopped the sweat from his brow, heart palpitating inside his chest. He dares inch closer to the glass, even going so far to touch it. This. This is his greatest achievement, and Milas' blood made it all possible. Bless that young woman wherever she may be.
On the other side of the glass, hypnotic red swirls weep from the little girl's shuddering form. She's terrified at what's happening to her, but she's alive. She's healthy. Her heart beats, and her blood flows. It worked. It finally worked.
Ms. Bērziņš comes up beside him, penning something down on her clipboard. "Her vitals are stable. The serum worked. Using a descendant of a known Squib was a brilliant idea. What number shall we give her?"
Strucker removes his hand from the glass, shaking his head. "Wanda will do."
"And the boy? Pietro? Should we inject the serum into him, as well?"
"We'll find something else for him. We cannot risk the off-chance of killing him. Little Wanda will do good with him around."
The woman hesitates, regarding the girl in the room cautiously. "Sir, we're still not entirely sure what she's capable of. This isn't like Milas. We were never certain what the results would be if were to succeed. Only theories."
"We'll monitor her around the clock. Keep her in the room. Give her toys to experiment with first. Then animals. I suspect it'll be a long road before we're able to decide what exactly this red smoke entails and her finding the capability to control it."
Strucker leaves for his office, picking up the phone and calling Pierce immediately but gets his voicemail.
"Alex, call me back. I have great news."
To be Continued...
A/N: Oh, my! How'd you like that? Hope you liked it, even just a little. Share me your thoughts. And, hey! Hermione kissed Bucky! Wahoo! What? Not exactly what you were hoping for?
Guess what? Next chapter is all about 2008, and you all know what that means! I'm excited! Are you?
