A/N: This story will follow MCU continuity and ignore all Assassin's Creed story starting shortly pre-World War II. In other words, no Desmond and no Animus, just the Creed fighting Templars in a world with superheroes.
Chapter One: The First Avenger
September 21st, 1939
The Assassin lay flat in the snow at the top of a small hill, staring through his rifle's scope at the columns of Nazi sturmtruppen marching through the Polish countryside. There was at least a battalion's worth of troops, with an escort of four or five panzers. The Assassin was alone on the hill with nothing but the scoped Mosin Nagant in his arms, an old Webley revolver, and the hidden blades of his order. The Assassins had largely abandoned the robes they had historically worn in favor of blending in, but he currently wore a robe modeled after those worn by Connor Kenway during the Revolution, patterned in whites and light greys to blend into the snow. The warmth, ease of movement, and concealment granted by the flowing garment suited his purposes well.
He continued watching the column as soldiers and motorized units streamed by, until a staff car came into view. He focused his aim on the vehicle, examining the occupants. A driver in dress uniform, the crisp outfit in stark contrast to the dirty, wearied soldiers around them. The sergeant's insignia on his sleeve indicated that he was the Wehrmacht's master sergeant equivalent, a soldier who would only be playing driver to a very senior officer. A private in battle dress rode in the passenger seat, his MP40 clutched in his hands. Two men sat in the back seat, both dressed in the overcoats and peaked hats of officers. An adjustment to his scope brought the two into greater focus. The one on the left wore the single star of a brigadier general on his collar, and was talking animatedly to the man on the right, who wore no rank insignia. The only identifier on the other man's uniform were the tentacled skulls adorning his collar and hat.
The Assassin took aim at Johann Schmidt, the current leader of the ancient Templar scientific division, known in its current form as the Nazi group Hydra. He settled the scope's crosshair at the base of the man's skull, taking a deep breath and letting it slowly escape him. Halfway through the exhale he stopped, holding the remaining air inside him, tracked the scope back on target, accounting for the wind blowing the small white handkerchief blowing from a bush next to him and for the increasing distance, and smoothly squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked loudly, flinging the small piece of lead from the cartridge at supersonic speed, which reached the car just as it jounced through a crater in the road. The bullet smashed into the private's skull, spattering his brains across the windshield, and the sergeant responded as he had been trained, pushing the accelerator and leaping around the column to put a half-ton supply truck between them and the Assassin.
"Fuck," the Assassin muttered, then worked the bolt, ejecting the spent cartridge into the snow. He aimed and fired a few more shots at other visible officers, hopefully turning an assasination attempt into an attack of opportunity in the Templar's eyes. A squad of soldiers quickly organized and began to move towards the hill, darting from cover to cover and blind firing their submachine guns and Gewehr rifles as they closed the distance. The Assassin dropped three of them before they closed enough that he couldn't hit them from his perch.
The Assassin rose from his prone position to a crouch, slung his rifle over his back, and started running towards the back slope of the hill, still crouched. When he heard chatter in German behind him, he threw himself into a bush and drew the Webley, waiting for the enemy to close. Four soldiers came up to the top of the hill, three with rifles and one with an MP40. The other five were probably circling around to secure the rest of the hill, waiting to catch and kill him when these four flushed him from hiding. The hill wasn't a large area to hide on or search, and it took only moments for a soldier to approach his hiding place. The man's back was turned as he poked at another bush with the bayonet fixed to his rifle barrel, and he never saw it coming when the Assassin lunged forward, the hidden blade on his empty hand extended. The butt of the Webley connected with the soldier's head and the blade rammed itself through his neck, severing the spine. The Assassin wrapped his gun arm around the man's bleeding throat and dragged him back into the bush.
The disturbance attracted the machine gunner, who came over with his weapon raised and ready. "Johann?" he called. "Wo bist du?" Where are you?
"Hier," the Assassin called back softly, the low volume of his voice hiding the different pitch and timbre of his voice. He holstered his revolver and tensed as the German came closer, then leaped once he was close enough. His left hand locked around the other man's throat, choking off his cry at the Assassin's sudden appearance, and his right pressed against the German's chest as he triggered the hidden blade, the short weapon stabbing into his heart. The leap's momentum carried them into the snow, and the Assassin rolled forward, freeing his blade and translating the movement into a sprint towards a nearby tree. He lept upward, grabbing the lowest branch of the tree and hauling himself up, climbing until he reached a sturdy branch that extended over the dead men's bodies.
The two remaining soldiers had come running at the commotion and now stood over their fallen comrade, casting about with their rifles leveled, searching for a target. The Assassin threw himself from the branch, extending both hidden blades as he dropped down on his unsuspecting targets. He struck hands first, gravity driving the blades through their necks and severing their spines, much as he had the first of their unit. Their bodies broke his fall, and he stood, flicking the blood off of his blades before they disappeared back into his sleeves. He sighed, then dragged the submachine gunner's body away from the rest, leaning it against a tree and stripping the uniform from it. He stripped out of his robes and put on the uniform, a quick slash across his own chest accounting for the blood and damage to the tunic. He dressed the dead man in his robes, minus any Creed insignia or other telltales, then picked up the MP40 and emptied it into the corpses' chest and face. The corpse slumped over in the snow, entirely unrecognizable, as the Assassin intended.
In case the sudden gunfire wasn't enough to draw the rest of them in, he raised his voice and yelled, "Ich hab ihn!" I got him! He kept his new helmet tipped forward and the scarf the soldier had been wearing over his lower face, hiding himself from the soldiers.
"Was zur Hölle ist passiert?" the first soldier to reach him asked. What the hell happened?
"Er griff von den Baumen und den Bushen an, Ich habe es kaum geschafft, ihn zu verschieben, bevor e mich erwischt hat," the Assassin responded. He attacked from the trees and bushes and I barely managed to kill him.
"Fühlst du dich gut, Heinrich? Du klingst seltsam," the soldier asked. Are you alright? You sound odd.
"Die wurden auch, wenn Sie fast gestorben waren," the Assassin said. You would too if you'd nearly died.
The soldier looked at his chest wound more closely, the blood from the uniform's original owner making it look much worse than it was. "Schauen Sie sich das an, bevor es infiziert wird," the soldier said, a frown on his face. Go get that looked at before it gets infected.
The Assassin nodded and started walking down the hill, passing by the other soldiers as they followed the first soldier towards the corpses. As soon as he was out of sight, he turned away from the column and started running at a steady pace through the snow, heading for a small copse of trees. When he reached it his horse was waiting where he had left it within, its reigns tied to a small sapling. He stripped out of the Nazi's overcoat, helmet and scarf, and grabbed a heavy, brown, rough-spun greatcoat from the horse, pulling it over the stolen uniform to hide it. Then he mounted the horse and rode away, heading west and towards friendly territory.
May 4th, 1940 - 1900 hours
The Assassin sat in the pub beneath the castle, nursing a rich German brown and chafing against the limits placed upon him. Several senior members of the American chapter of the Assassins had come together to form the OSS, and so many Assassins had come to serve in its ranks. Unfortunately, with a legitimate place in the military hierarchy came greater restrictions than the Assassin was used to working under. For instance, his current mission. The castle above the village was one of Hydra's major research centers, and intel indicated that Johann Schmidt, Arnim Zola, and a vital, if unwilling scientist were all present within for the final stages of an experiment. But the Assassin's orders were to wait for contact from their man on the inside, rather than doing what he and every other member of his Order had been trained to do for centuries. Left to his own devices, he would infiltrate the castle, kill Zola and the scientist, unwillingly working for Hydra or not, and finish the job he had started in September of the previous year by throwing Schmidt out a damn window.
He was startled out of his reverie when a woman sat down across from him at the table. She was dressed like a servant, but was nonetheless extremely attractive. Dark, chocolate-colored hair, full lips, piercing, intelligent eyes, in all a woman the Assassin would normally pursue. But not today, not while he was working. "Entschuldigung fraulein, aber ich warte auf jemanden," he said. Apologies miss, but I'm waiting for someone.
The woman leaned forward, eyeing him up before responding. He knew that he looked out of place here, high in the Alps where the majority of people had paler skin and lighter hair. His darker complexion and hair, a result of his distant Native American descent, was out of place, though his narrow nose, thin lips, and green eyes were similar enough to the locals that he didn't draw more than an occasional odd look. "Das Skifahren ist zu dieser Jahreszeit ausgezeichnet," she said, raising an eyebrow at him. The skiing is excellent this time of year.
He felt his face flush slightly, though luckily not as noticeably as it felt, and he switched to English to give the countersign. "Only a fool would go skiing when there's a war on," he said quietly. "Apologies, ma'am. Our superiors gave me the impression I'd be meeting with a man."
"Is it going to be a problem?" she asked, her tone challenging. Now that she spoke their native language, he could hear an English accent breaking through.
The Assassin let a smile split his face. "No ma'am. Those Aryan bastards will never see you coming the way they would someone like me, especially if you've been working as a servant there."
She smiled as well, though he detected a certain level of relief in the expression. "Good. How well are you briefed?"
"Well enough to know that they should have just let me turn that damned castle into a charnel house," the Assassin growled, his earlier bad mood quickly returning.
The woman shook her head. "I would agree with you, but we have bigger problems than Schmidt and Arnim bloody Zola. The scientist, Abraham Erskine, has come up with some kind of formula that can enable the body to realize its full potential," she said, then fixed him with a look. "They've figured out how to make super soldiers."
The Assassin stopped for a moment, processing this information. If the Nazis got their hands on super soldiers, or even worse, the Templars... "Damnit," he whispered. "Right then. What's the plan, miss..?"
"Agent Thirteen," she said, "but call me Peggy." She reached her hand across the table to shake and looked at him, expecting a name in return.
"John," he said, then added "Doe," with a small smile as he shook the offered hand.
She gave him a look, then moved on. "As you guessed, I've gained employment as a servant in the castle," she said, and cut him off when he opened my mouth to ask a question. "I wear a quite good wig that so far has managed to fool those eugenecist shits. From what we know the formula will be tested tonight, on Schmidt himself. The test will begin around midnight so that anything unusual will hopefully be overlooked down here in the village. I can leave a side door open around eleven o'clock to let you in, though the door is a balcony door overlooking a cliff. Can you find a way up? If not, we'll need an alternate plan."
"I can make it," he said quietly.
She nodded, taking his answer in stride. "I'll wait by the door and point you in the right direction. Erskine will be in his quarters while Zola conducts the test. I will retrieve Erskine while you break into his research lab and destroy everything. You are not to attempt to engage Zola or Schmidt. According to the notes I've seen Schmidt is rushing into this and the formula will likely kill him, and without Schmidt Zola has no power or funding."
"How certain are we that the formula will kill Schmidt?" he asked.
"Erskine seems fairly certain in his notes," she responded. "But there are no guarantees."
"Then why not just kill him?" the Assassin asked. "If we're not certain I can slip in and out without an issue, kill them both, and then torch the lab."
Peggy was shaking her head. "We have orders, John."
He groaned, leaning back in his chair for a moment. "Alright, alright. So. Eleven tonight, cliff balcony door. Anything else?"
"Yes," she said. "They told me you jumped in with nothing but your clothes and some money to preserve cover."
He nodded in response. I had my hidden blades as well, but outside of the Order, and unfortunately the Templars, they were a closely held secret so he saw no reason to list them among his assets.
"There is a cache in the woods by a lightning-split tree. You'll find some climbing gear, a rifle, and a sidearm for your use. Bring a shovel." Once she had finished speaking, she stood and walked out of the pub, leaving the Assassin alone at the table with his beer.
May 4th, 1940 - 2250 hours
The Assassin stood at the base of the cliff leading up to the balcony he would infiltrate the castle through. The M1 Garand Para carbine, a lightweight variant of the standard US infantry M1 Garand, was slung over his shoulder, and an M1911 pistol rode its holster at his hip, both retrieved from the gear cache Peggy had told him about. He had left the climbing gear, confident in his ability, born of years of training, to find his own way up the cliff face. Looking up at the rock, it was the right call. A crack ran ninety percent of the height of the cliff, and the meandering crack would allow him to find foot and handholds all the way up without trouble.
He was nearly at the top when he heard shuffling just on the balcony, the sound of boots idly scuffing against stone. He pulled himself up the last few feet, holding on to the lip of the low wall around the balcony, and risked a peak over. A single guard, his rifle slung over his shoulder, stood facing the other side of the cliff, a lit cigarette in his mouth. As John looked, the sentry began to turn and he quickly moved his head back below the lip. He heard the guard stop right above him, and slowly removed his right arm from the lip, hanging from one arm and braced by his feet. He quietly ejected the hidden blade on his free hand, then lunged upward, stabbing upwards into the guards throat, then allowing gravity to carry him back down, his hand grabbing the collar of the sentry's uniform and pulling him over the edge. The body fell the length of the cliff, not making a sound thanks to his cut throat, and splattered against the ground.
John pulled himself up onto the balcony, retracting the hidden blade right before the door swung open, revealing Peggy silhouetted in the doorway, wearing an excellently made blond wig. He crossed the balcony stepping through the doorway past Peggy. "You were right, that is a nice wig," he said, smirking, then immediately became serious. "Which way do I go?"
"Up the stairs, take a right, fourth door on the left," she said. "Exfiltration is in place, we'll leave through a hidden garage under the fortress. Take the dumbwaiter shaft near the lab down, shouldn't be a problem for you since you made it up that cliff without ropes. It will deposit you near the stairs down, just turn right and go through the door at the end of the hall. We'll meet you there."
He nodded, then turned and ran up the stairs while she turned and went the other direction to retrieve the scientist. John made it to the lab without meeting resistance, and when he tried the door it opened smoothly. He crept in cautiously, only to see a bearded, grey-haired man, Erskine he presumed, being backed into a corner by a man with what looked like a red skull instead of a face. The red skull was waving a Luger in the scientist's face, ranting about the experiment and ordering Erskine to fix him. John put two and two together and got four.
"Well then," he said, stepping into the clear. "I guess the experiment was moved up."
Schmidt, for that was who John had realized the skull man as, rounded on the new arrival, aiming his pistol directly at the Assassin. John wore no robes or insignia, instead wearing simple workman's clothes and boots. Jeans, a dark colored shirt beneath a similarly dark jacket, and a hat to finish. "And who the fuck are you?" the disfigured man snarled.
"Just someone trying to finish the job they started eight months ago in Poland," John replied blandly.
It took a moment, but then the skull twisted in realization. "So it was an assassination attempt," he growled. "You will die today, Assassin." The pistol Schmidt held fired before he finished speaking, but John had expected as much and threw himself to one side, letting the rifle fall from his shoulder and drawing his pistol.
Schmidt continued to blaze away, bullets striking all around the Assassin and spilling chemicals across the floor. Finally, Schmidt ran out of rounds, and John dashed forward, leaping into the air and driving both feet into the Hydra leader's chest. The man staggered, but not as much as he should have, and John felt like he had kicked a large sack of sand. John snapped up his pistol and fired twice, forcing Schmidt to dive behind a table for cover. The Assassin grabbed Erskine from where he cowered in a corner, hooking an arm in his throat and aiming his pistol past the egghead's face.
"Doctor, if you want to get out of this alive, tell me what will explode if I shoot it," John said.
"Ah, well, um," Erskine was in shock and didn't respond immediately.
"Before reinforcements arrive, please," John muttered.
"That one," Erskine said, pointing at a flask which had a steady drip from a complicated set of tubes. "If you shoot it the resulting explosion should destroy the entire lab."
"Right then," John said, "cover your ears." They reached the door and John fired. A fireball sparked off almost immediately and quickly grew while John shoved the scientist down the hall to the dumbwaiter. The fireball entered the hallway, billowing towards them as John opened the hatch and shoved the scientist through, barely following and closing the metal door before the flames reached them. "Down we go, doc," he said.
"Down that?" Erskine said, his face blanching.
John smiled coldly. "Unless you'd rather go back to Zola and his Hydra goons," he snapped.
Erskine gulped and nodded, then jumped onto the dumbwaiter waiting a floor below. John followed, then used his hidden blade to sever one of the ropes in the pulley system holding the dumbwaiter. It plunged several floors, drawing a squeal from the German, then jerked to a stop. John repeated the action on another rope, and they made their way to the bottom of the shaft in that manner. Finally John shoved open another hatch and clambered out of the shaft, dragging the distinctly green Erskine behind him. Erskine had thrown up twice on the way down, and John was thoroughly ready to be rid of the scientist.
Peggy was waiting for them. "I heard the explosion, but the doctor wasn't…" she said, but suddenly stopped when she saw Erskine behind him.
"Experiment got moved up," he said shortly. "Schmidt was… messed up and trying to get the doctor to fix him. I improvised and blew him up."
Peggy stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, then shook herself and pushed open the door she stood in front of. "Right then. Through here. We'll steal a vehicle and head for a resistance airfield nearby. Follow me if you would, Doctor?"
Erskine stared at her in confusion. "Hilda? Weren't you blond? And… not English?" John rolled his eyes and put a hand on the scientist's shoulder, pushing him down the stairs after the lady spy.
Hours later, once the three of them were winging their way over occupied France in the plane that had been waiting for them at the airfield John leaned across the compartment towards Peggy. "It's been a pleasure, Peggy," he said.
"Now that we're out of the thick of things, I believe you mean Agent Carter," she responded, her lips twisting into a smile.
John returned the smile. "A pleasure, Agent Carter," he reiterated, then continued. "And seeing as we Americans aren't pretentious gits like you Brits, you can just call me John. Kenway, not Doe."
A/N: Two quick things: One, I don't speak, read, or write German, so any errors are due to Google Translate. If you do know German and find a mistake, let me know and I'll fix it. Second, I'm aware that that's not how dumbwaiters and pulleys work, but I thought Erskine puking on John was funny so I went with it. Hope you enjoyed, and please review!