TW: SLIGHT MENTIONS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING - Just wanted people to be aware of this before reading.
"And that makes three." he sighed, leaning back in his computer chair. Eyes shifting away from the screens he was in front of, he looked over to where Q was standing by with her arms crossed over her chest, "Our boy Bucky is officially killing known Hydra associates." he reached for his energy drink with his better hand even though the cast had finally come off a few days prior. Or rather, he ripped it off with a knife a few days prior, claiming enough time had passed and the bones were healed – even though he still refused to use it since it still pained him.
"And we're sure it's him?" she asked, motioning with her hand. Dawson nodded, leaning forward in his chair so he could roll it forward toward his screens.
"The old guy at the wedding, the old lady in the office building and now this old dude in some random parking lot." he pulled up their faces on the screen, all of them having the same red DECEASED bar flashing under their profile pictures, "All three of them pinged on the black box." he showed her the screen to the right where the victims names were highlighted on a news alert and then also on whatever file they were mentioned in in the black box, "All three of them killed in the same way. No sign of struggle, found alone…trust me, it's him." she took in a breath, letting her hands drop from where they were crossed over her chest to settle at her hips, "You always say it takes three to define a pattern." he reminded her, sensing her uncertainty.
"No, yeah, I know. I know." she waved her hand a bit at him before pulling her bottom lip into her mouth, "Okay, move over," she hip bumped his chair over so he slid a bit and ignored his appalled and offended expression.
"Hey, woah, you're gonna fuck up my settings." he protested, already moving his hand over to intercept her keystrokes. She batted his hand away; she may not be good with super advanced technology or coding or anything like Dawson did, but she knew what needed to be done next much better than he did.
Quickly shifting into her SHIELD mode, she went about what she would usually do whenever tracking down a mark or a threat. Analyze the profiles to find more information that could be useful. The same thing she did when they were trying to find Sitwell all those months ago. Her mind briefly flashed back to that moment in the car with Sam, following with a quick wonder of where he was and how he was doing before refocusing on the task at hand.
Cross-referencing his victims, she tried to find anything else the three had in common besides being killed by Bucky and being on the black box. Anything that they could use to predict who could be next. If there was a small enough group, then maybe they'd have a chance at intercepting him. And finally, Q could maybe feel like the entire decision to go find Bucky and all the consequences that came after it was worth it. That she didn't blow up her life for nothing.
"They were all on the same project." she muttered out, finding the connection, "Working as associates for other parts of the Soldier Project." she continued to read as Dawson asked questions,
"But didn't that project start in like World War two?" he asked, confused by the timeline, "These people were like late seventies, mid-eighties, not a hundred." he gestured to the main screen with all their faces.
"That's why I said other parts." she repeated herself with a slight look in his direction. He rolled his eyes, pitching forward in his chair to get closer to the screen, "Apparently there were different phases. Yeah Bucky was like the main test subject, but the project continued to grow as whatever they did with Bucky became successful. They got more information, more technology, moved to Siberia, got more volunteers –"
"Volunteers?" he cut her off, "People actually volunteered for this shit?" she highlighted the passage she was paraphrasing from.
"Some were volunteers, some were…not." she finished, understanding how Hydra got their test subjects; kidnapping, human trafficking… "One of these people helped in that area once they shifted into advancing the Soldier Program." she dragged the mouse around the face of the woman, "The other two did other things like outside research or getting whatever sort of drugs or chemicals or whatever." she understood why they were considered Hydra-adjacent. All three had other careers that allowed Hydra to take advantage of the benefits without being caught or raising any eyebrows.
"So who's next?" he asked with an almost nervous look. She took in a breath and turned her attention back to the other screen, typing a few commands to pull up the other profiles mentioned in the project file.
"God it could be any one of these people." she mumbled dejectedly. About a dozen new profiles came up on the screen. Dawson let out a sigh, realizing why she didn't sound so hopeful.
"Do we just wait and see who dies next, let it get whittled down to the final one and then go after him?" he asked, getting Q to flick her head to stare at him with a startled expression at the insinuation that they were going to let those people be killed by Bucky. Dawson raised his hands up, "They're basically Nazis, I'm just saying." he defended himself. And while he had a point, she really wasn't sure what their next steps would be. Obviously, all she wanted was to find Bucky, but there were too many people that matched the modus operandi of the three that were killed.
"Let me do a bit more research." she settled on, motioning at him to get out of his chair, which he blatantly ignored, "See if I can find any more points of crossover between these three." she was already forming a mental list of things to compare and contrast with, but he still refused to move out of his seat, "Dawson, get up." she groaned, "Go do some quote-unquote physical therapy with Marina for your hand. You told the doctor you would." she referenced back to the promise he made with the doctor who fixed his hand two months ago.
"He wasn't even a real doctor." he mumbled under his breath, but got out of his chair.
"Still fixed your hand, didn't he?" she asked with raised eyebrows. He rolled his eyes, but didn't comment, instead moving on to more important matters,
"Don't fuck with my chair either." he pointed at her, "The height is just how I like it and the seat is just firm enough." It was her turn to roll her eyes, which she did while rolling forward to the center of the three screen terminal.
The black box had been their biggest breakthrough yet. Where the journal and the Hydra network they had found in the bunker months before had been more specific to the beginning of the Soldier Project and Bucky himself, the black box increased their awareness of the Hydra that was still presently active. Holding an up to date record of all past projects, known associates and current open research projects, the black box provided much more than the journal or bunker network could. If she thought the SHIELD leak was bad…she could only imagine the kind of chaos would come from leaking the contents of the Hydra black box. Sometimes she considered it.
The terrible things they had done in the name of science – kidnapping children and forcing them into the same program Bucky had gone through in hopes of a better outcome, using some of Steve's DNA to create clones of him to use as a weapon against him, and other horrific things to further their plans of complete societal control. And no one knew that any of it had happened except for the people involved.
But at the moment, that wasn't her main concern. She needed to figure out Bucky's pattern and try to figure out a way to predict who his next target might be. While she let her program run it's course (really the only computer program she knew how to execute), she turned to the journal they had found in the Hydra bunker. Marina had translated it for them in a matter of days and Q often found herself turning to the English pages that had printed out for her more often than not. It gave her an inside look at what exactly they did to Bucky to turn him from Captain America's best friend into a weapon they could use for whatever they pleased.
She figured the notebook would give her nightmares or not being able to get through it – the details more in depth than anything she had ever read before, but instead she found herself flying through the contents of the journal in less than a week. For as horrifying as the content was, she learned so much about both the organization and Bucky himself.
Entry 012: ...The asset has not taken well to the new arm he has been given. Mills found him trying to rip it off. The asset did not seem to care about the pain he was inflicting to himself, solely focused on getting the arm off. The skin has scarred from where he managed to break through in his desperate efforts to tear the arm away. Must reprogram him to understand the arm is a gift...
Entry 033: The asset is struggling with memories of a past person. The neurological team is working on procedures that include several different types of electroshock therapy sessions along with a list of trigger words and phrases to help with erasing the past man who lived inside of the asset's body. Will update with progress.
Entry 207: Lingering abnormalities from the man before haunt the asset, despite the advancements made in the neurological rewiring. Such as: hugging the right walls instead of left, hesitating slightly when it comes to climbing stairs, omitting color descriptors (though will describe if asked directly), refuses to utilize any of the left pockets of his uniform (unsure if this has something to do with the new arm adjustments that were made).
And while it didn't help them find Bucky any quicker, it made her understand him a bit more. Understand why he paused that day on the riverbank – saving Steve instead of killing him, and why he turned the other way instead of hurting her either. Understand why Hydra had to work so hard to erase the man he used to be and why he was now killing off anyone and everyone who had something to do with the torture he had been put through. Kind of ironic, she thought; the weapon they had made was ultimately going to be their demise.
A ping from the computer got her attention, pulling her from the section of the journal she had been reading. The program had found a few similar matches to the tag she had entered earlier. Narrowing down the other dozen's location in regards to the last three who had been killed, left four profiles on display. While none of them looked familiar, one of the names got her attention. Mostly because it was the same name that was mentioned in the journal passage she had been reading while the program was running.
Flipping back through the translated pages, she found where the name had been mentioned. It was only briefly, at the top of the page where the involved were listed before the report began. The man had come up with some sort of drug that had been tested on Bucky to quell the infection that had started to spread from the metal arm they replaced his real arm with. The metal wasn't as new as it was when first attached to Bucky, causing some of the arm melding with the little skin he had left on the shoulder. Added with the constant use of the appendage, made for the metal to slowly rub away at the skin on the shoulder and letting some of the pieces to come in contact with his bloodstream.
While it has been a long time since the subject has had any issues with the metal arm, (see entry number 012 for more information) post-mission evaluations prove that blood toxicity levels are rising. The arm, being mostly made out of a Titanium alloy, poses no real threat to the body since it is not a poison metal and the human body can tolerate titanium in large dose. It could be in relation to either the other alloys or the technological upgrades given to the arm as stated in previous entries (see entry numbers 045, 101, 175).
Since it is generally accepted that some amount of ion release is necessary to start a reaction, factors such as interaction between different metals could initiate a corrosive process on the titanium surfaces and this will initiate ion release or structural changes which could be the cause of the infection.
Thanks to the advanced healing aspect of the serum the subject had been given, his blood toxicity levels is rapidly falling just as quickly as they were rising. Yet the constant self-healing is slowing him down. This is not ideal. The weapon must be able to be fully operational at all times, despite what may be going on inside his body. Dr. List is working on a drug to administer to the subject that will clear the infection and prevent any further infections from the metals.
Apparently ibuprofen wasn't strong enough to get rid of it. But List had been successful in his experiment, using his career at a pharmaceutical quality control lab as a cover for the antibiotic he was creating. He had administered the drug over a period of time, having constant contact with Bucky during it. The journal had quoted reports from him, noting how out of it Bucky seemed. He would be staring into space, unaware of his surroundings or what was going on, and only answering with brief, almost one syllable answers whenever asked a question - exactly how Hydra programed him to. In a way the man may have saved his life, but it also damned him to Hydra for a long time after.
Despite not being at Hydra at all times, List had quite a bit of one on one time with Bucky. And in an effort to find another link between him and the other three, she went flipping through the journal entries again to find any mentions of the other names. Any thing she could do in an effort to narrow down the list of potentials before it was too late.
Since she was doing it manually, it took her a bit to find the names. But she did - all of them being before any mention of List and his interactions with Bucky. Each of them had prolonged face to face exchanges with him at pivotal moments during his time in the third phase of the Soldier project. Oleksander was the one upgrading his arm with current technological advances, the woman had used/abused him as a bodyguard when "recruiting" new members for the project and the most current victim had brought back research for Bucky's programming - the programming that turned him into the Winter Soldier Q had come face to face with.
"Oh my god, he's going after the ones he remembers most." she muttered to herself, coming to the realization of the pattern. Even if he was despondent and seemed checked out while interacting with these people, a part of his brain was filing away their faces, names, what they did...all for the moment when he got himself back. And it was clear he was slowly getting there.
Calling a team meeting, she explained what she had found to Marina and Dawson - along with the plan she had come up with the intercept Bucky before he made his move. List had been working on a Hydra-approved project in Sokovia where volunteers and non-volunteers alike were being gathered to be experimented on. The project had been active ever since the last black box update, which had been a few days prior to the group stealing it from Oleksander's office.
Her plan was to infiltrate the project as a volunteer, make contact with List and convince him to come with her to a secure location. Somewhere where Bucky would no doubt track them down, but still someplace where she would be able to get to him at the same time.
"And you think you're going to be the one going into a Hydra experiment facility?" Dawson asked after she had finished explaining her plan.
"Uh, yeah." she thought she had made that painfully clear. He let out a scoff, shaking his head as he got up from his chair,
"No, no way are you doing that." he shot her down, making her let out a similar scoff to his,
"What? Are you gonna do it?" she asked, arms crossing over her chest and tone making it clear she didn't think he would be volunteering any time soon. He held eye contact with her for a moment, jaw opening slightly and then turning his head to look at Marina,
"Marina can." he volunteered his semi-friend up. She made a face and shrugged, obviously unconcerned with what she had just been volunteered for.
"No, no, no," Q shook her head, raising her hands up in front of her, "Listen, I'm going, okay? You're still injured and Marina needs to stay here to keep an eye on the screens." she put them in their roles, eyes flicking between the two before settling back on Dawson, "You can keep tabs on me with trackers and comms - it'll be fine, okay?" she assured them, just wanting to get the plan into motion. The longer they waited, the smaller their window of time became. Based on her timeline of the previous victims' deaths, they had about thirteen hours before List was killed by Bucky.
Dawson begrudgingly agreed after a few more moments of coaxing and reassurance that nothing was going to happen; with his tech, Q would be fine. While he went off to tinker with their tracking devices and comm links, she turned to Marina to figure out how she would be getting into the Hydra facility.
"From everything I've found, they've worked mainly with human trafficking rings." she explained to Marina while they were coming up with a plan, "It's terrible, but it's not something you can just find." she looked over at the woman, who was nodding slowly to herself.
"Sure it is. Bars, nightclubs, even just out on the street when you see little children asking for your help to find their moms." she answered, a bit of weight to her voice while she ticked off different examples. Q paused for a moment, not wanting to continue the conversation if it was going to make Marina uncomfortable. But it was Marina who continued, clearing her throat and asking, "They're looking for people who want to take part in some sort of medical research project, right?"
"That's what they're framing it as." Q took in a breath and looked at the papers that were on the table in front of them, "Some sort of study. They promise to pay you."
"Of course they do, unless they kill you." she quipped as she read the information from the black box file, "Working mainly with victims of the Sokovia riots and those fed up with the state of the country." she pointed out, dragging her finger along to part to highlight her point. Ironic, since the state of the country was entirely Hydra's fault; using the riots as a cover for the experiments that were happening, "There's your in." she raised her eyebrows up and glanced over to Q.
From there, they had to quickly finish up the rest of the arrangements needed: the traveling plans, the how, where and who she would make contact with in order to get to the facility. She would fake an injury and get herself to a small walk-in clinic that the black box listed as a place Hydra used as a recruitment hub - one that didn't have an online processing database or any up to date security measures (so there would be no risk of other people finding out where she was). She was coached by Marina on what to say, given a comms piece from Dawson along with multiple tracking devices in case of emergency.
Everything was going according to plan; she had gotten to Sokovia with no issues, managed to find the clinic and get in to see one of the doctors. She had said what Marina wanted her to say and could tell it was the right thing based on the look the doctor had given her.
"What's happening now is terrible." the doctor prompted in Ukrainian, having switched from Russian earlier in the visit. She nodded, making her face a bit sad,
"If only there were some way to change it." she responded, playing the part. The doctor nodded, closing his file folder and pressing it against his chest,
"There is a facility working in the mountains that is dedicated to finding a way to achieve the power needed to drive war out of Sokovia." he told her exactly what she wanted to hear, "They're recruiting anyone interested in stopping this madness." she nodded, wanting him to ask her the right question, "Are you someone interested in that?" Bingo. She was in.
"I am, yes." she responded, hands gripping the edge of examination table she was seated on. The doctor nodded and he gave her a quick smile.
"One moment, I will go get the necessary paperwork for you to fill out." he turned for the door, exiting the room and leaving Q alone.
"Did you get all that?" she asked, turning her head to the side and pressing into her comm piece as she switched to English again.
"Yeah, looks like you're about to take a trip to Hydraland." Dawson's voice came back over,
"The most terrifying place on Earth." she muttered, hearing him huff out a laugh before becoming serious again,
"Be careful, alright?"
"I told you, I got this." she assured him, "I'll let you know when I make contact." she quickly finished up the conversation as she heard the doctor coming back to the room. He had a few papers on a clipboard in one hand and a syringe in the other. Oh, that was not part of the plan.
"I just need you to fill these out," he handed her the clipboard before moving over to her arm, "And this is just something to help flush out any toxins that may be in your body." he explained offhandedly, making her think it was anything but. Though before she could protest, he had already pushed the needle into her arm, letting whatever was inside the syringe go into her bloodstream.
She tried to focus on the clipboard in front of her, but her vision was swimming. The world felt like it was spinning even though she was seated. And her head felt like it was too heavy for her body. She tried to keep her eyes open as long as she could, but soon whatever he had drugged her with took over. Her body tipped to the side and she fell into the darkness.
When she woke, it was like she was dealing with the worst hangover of her life. Even blinking hurt. She groaned to herself, trying to take stock of what hurt most in her body; her head was number one, but also weirdly her right arm and her left ankle. Her ear felt empty; they had taken out her comm piece, meaning she had no way of contacting Dawson to let him know where she was or what her current situation was. What was her current situation anyway? All she knew was that the world was still spinning slightly - but it slowed to a stop after a moment of focusing on her breathing.
"Ah, you're awake." A male voice spoke, in English but lilted with an Eastern European accent. It came from the back left corner of whatever room she was in. She tried to turn her head to look, but it hurt too much to try.
She went to sit up, only finding that she couldn't; she was strapped down to a chair much like the ones dentists used. Restraints were holding her down from her ankles to her wrists to the big, thick one across her ribcage. Looking up she found herself staring at some sort of machine that had wires spewing out from the bottom, rings outlining whatever was inside and a giant light bulb in the center.
Needless to say, she was panicking. This was not supposed to be part of the plan. She was supposed to be ushered in with the rest of the volunteer group. Supposed to have able to make contact with List before the window had closed. Not stuck in some sort of Hydra torture room.
"Hopefully, you had a nice rest," the man's voice was getting closer as were his footsteps. There was a click from beside her and the chair she was strapped down to straightened up a bit so that she was in a sitting position, "because we have a few very exciting days ahead of us..." Finally, she was able to see who had been talking to her: a tall, bald man dressed in all black, with a monocle on his right eye and an almost predatory grin on his face, "Agent Proctor." he smoothly said, as if waiting a while to deliver that line.
It was his way of letting her know that he knew who she really was and that she was utterly, royally fucked.
A/N: Any guesses on who's got Q? And what they're gonna do to her? I'll tell you this much: it's not gonna be pretty.
Ok so I've taken your advice and kinda moved my timetable up so that there can be more interaction with canon characters and what not and I KNOW this chapter didn't have any of that lol, but hopefully the ending is enough to keep your interest piqued until the next chapter! I'm sorry this story has become such a disappointment for a few of you and I totally get it if you no longer want to read/review. Thank you for sticking with me this long! And to those still reading despite all this apparent disappointment, thank you ten times more!
Also, it's been a week since Endgame and I'm still not over it. I'm VERY excited for Q and Dawson's storylines though and can't wait to write them! There's a few snippets/previews on my tumblr: captdnvrs if you'd like to be ~spoiled-ish~ Also there was a post about Bucky that inspo some of those journal entries and it's somewhere under my insp tag too just as an fyi! Ahhhhh ok that is all! Thank you all for reading and reviewing! I love you all very very very much.