Uncovered Truths

"This is SHIELD," Natasha murmured as they stepped further into the building, frowning deeply as she looked around, spotting the SHIELD crest on the wall ahead of them.

"Looks like it," Olivia agreed, "But why would they build a branch here? No one's been here in a very long time."

Steve slowed as they entered another room to see some old, framed portraits of Howard Stark, Peggy, and Colonel Phillips, hanging on the wall, "Maybe this is just where it started," he offered.

It would make sense. SHIELD had formed after they had been frozen, but they didn't even known how the SSR had become what it was today. With the hype that was Captain America and Major Britannia and how SHIELD seemed to be based in America, they would pick a site closer to Captain America. This was his training base, where he started, it would be fitting for it to be where SHIELD began as well. Perhaps they had built this building after they'd been frozen as a more stationary home base, non-war related but more central to SHIELD. Once it advanced enough, it would likely move somewhere else, closer to the government and this initial base would be forgotten.

…but then why did it still have the portraits hanging up?

Why were there still things there when it should have been emptied with the inevitable move?

"There's Stark's father," Natasha noted.

"Howard," Olivia nodded, smiling softly at the sight of the three people who had helped them win the war.

"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked, not really caring about the other, grim-looking man. But to see a woman commemorated, that was something she was more interested in learning about. She had seen the records and reports of Captain America and Major Britannia. Steve often got more of the credit in the reports, with what she always called footnotes detailing how many people Olivia saved or assisted. For a woman of the 1940s to be deserving enough to have a portrait next to Howard Stark, it was something.

"Peggy," Olivia answered, "Peggy Carter, my best mate. She's the one who got Dr. Erskine to try me for his first experiment. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her," she murmured thoughtfully, "I'd have never met Steve if not for her."

"You would have," Steve countered, squeezing her hand, "Somehow we'd have met. Who knows," he shrugged, "Without you vouching for me I might not have been chosen for the next experiment. Maybe it would have been Hodge, maybe he would have tested out his strength on me and I'd have ended up in the hospital in the room next to yours."

Olivia shook her head, touched he truly believed they would have found their way to each other no matter what. She wasn't about to remind him she had been in hospital in England, not America and there was no cause for him to end up in a hospital in another country when America had fine ones. That or the strength Hodge would have used might have killed him instantly. She especially didn't want to recall how near the end she had been at the time, she may not have survived to meet him.

She didn't want to think about either, she didn't want to think about a world where she and Steve never met. It didn't matter in the long run, she HAD met him and that was all that mattered.

She shook her head again, starting to walk down the hall with Steve once more, looking around for any sign of someone there or something that could cause the signal Natasha had traced. They eventually came across a massive bookshelf empty of any books. Steve stepped closer to it, looking it over, from one end to the other, when he noticed there was no wall behind the shelf. He could feel the gentlest puff of air from one side of it.

"If you're already working in a secret office..." Steve murmured, reaching out to grab the end of the shelf, pulling it so it slid to the side, though it creaked with disuse, revealing a hallway behind it, "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

They looked at each other, nodding, and stepping past the shelf into the hall. They reached the door to the elevator, a key pad beside it. Natasha pulled out the tech she'd taken with her, flashing it over the pad to scan it and determine the keycode. Once she had it, she keyed it in, opening the door to the elevator, which they took down, the doors opening into a darkened room. They could faintly see a few small, dim lights before them and started walking towards it in the darkness. They were halfway there when the lights flickered on by itself, revealing what looked like the oldest computer still in existence, with a large control panel that held a few small monitors on it. There was one monitor, larger than the others, set in the middle of the panel with an old security camera fixed on top of it. Everything appeared to be covered in a layer of dust.

"This can't be the data-point," Natasha frowned as she stepped nearer to the console, "This technology is ancient."

"That's not," Olivia pointed out, nodding at a black flashdrive port hooked up in the middle of the panel. It was out of place not only in color, with everything else being dusty white or yellowed with age, but in the state of its tech and the fact that there was no dust on it.

Olivia looked over at Steve and Natasha, who nodded, and so she stepped closer and placed the flashdrive into the top port. It seemed to trigger an activation of sorts, the rest of the computer powered up, all the devices around the room starting to spin and whir.

The security camera on top of the middle monitor began to twitch as well, the computer speaking out, "Initiate system?" while also writing it in green letters across the monitor.

"Y-E-S," Natasha typed in, "Spells yes," she smiled as the computer began to warm up, "'Shall we play a game?'" she mimicked, straightening and turning to the others to explain, "It's from a movie that..."

"Yeah," Steve cut in, "We saw it."

"Terrible movie," Olivia murmured. She meant it in the sense that it was terrible to think that others would give power of war to a computer expressly because it lacked human emotion and wouldn't hesitate to declare war the way a human would. After having lived through it, war was something that should be avoided at all costs.

"Rogers, Steven," voice began to speak, heavily accented, the monitor flickering with green lights, creating something of a distorted face, "Born, 1918. Williams, Olivia. Born 1921. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984."

Natasha looked up at the security camera as it moved, analyzing them, and shook her head, "It's some kind of a recording," it had to be, to interact with them was too advanced for machines this old.

"I am not a recording, Fräulein," the computer spoke, "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am..."

Steve and Olivia watched in horror as a computer screen to the side of the main one began to show an old photo of Zola.

"No…" Olivia breathed.

Natasha frowned and looked at them, "Do you know this thing?"

"Arnim Zola," Steve answered, serious, "He was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull."

"He's been dead for years," Olivia added.

"First correction, I am Swiss," the computer, Zola, spoke, "Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Steve asked the computer.

"Invited."

"What?" Olivia frowned at that, unable to imagine that a man like Zola, after all he'd done for HYDRA, would ever be invited there.

Natasha, though, seemed to realize what Zola was talking about, "It was Operation Paperclip," she explained to them, "After World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"They thought I could help their cause," Zola chuckled, "I also helped my own."

Steve shook his head, "HYDRA died with the Red Skull," he insisted. HYDRA had to have died with Red Skull, otherwise everything he and Olivia had done, everything they'd fought for and nearly died for, would be for nothing.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."

"Prove it," Steve demanded.

"Accessing archive," the computer spoke, and another monitor on the other side of it began to show archived footage of Red Skull, "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist," and then clips of Steve and Olivia during the war, "The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited," they watched as the footage turned to Zola working with other scientists and SHIELD officials, "The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

Images of the Winter Soldier flickered, the man with the metal arm and red star, as a sniper, as a warrior.

"That's impossible," Natasha declared, "SHIELD would have stopped you."

"Accidents will happen," they could hear the smirk in the computerized voice as the footage changed to show a news report of Howard Stark's death in a car accident, implying it wasn't an accident at all but the work of HYDRA, followed by a brief report of Fury's own death, "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won. The death of Captain America and Major Britannia amount to the same as your lives," more clips appeared of news articles of how Steve and Olivia had gone missing, how they had sacrificed their lives, "A zero sum."

"Steve!" Olivia gasped when he suddenly lashed out in anger and punched the computer screen, shorting it out and cracking it. She reached out, taking his fist and looking over his knuckles to make sure he was alright. She had just reached up to touch his cheek with a hand, wanting to pull his attention away from the screen, when he pulled her to him instead and hugged her tightly.

"Not your life," he murmured in her ear as he held her close.

She closed her eyes a moment, understanding why he'd reacted so harshly. He would always defend her, protect her, as she would him, they loved each other. She couldn't deny she had been getting angry herself at what Zola was saying. In no universe was Steve's life worth a zero sum, she just hadn't reacted as violently as Steve had.

"Nor yours," she replied back.

"Ah, so sweet," Zola's voice rang out, tauntingly, forcing them to pull apart when a side monitor flickered and his face was back, "As I was saying..."

Steve shook his head and strode forward, "What's on this drive?"

"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."

"What kind of algorithm?" Olivia asked, "What does it do?"

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

They spun around when the doors to the room began to shut. Steve immediately hurled his shield at it, trying to wedge it between the doors, but he was too late. The shield bounced off of it and back to him as he caught it.

Natasha pulled out a beeping device from her pocket, "We got a bogey," she called out to them, "Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"Who fired it?" he asked.

"SHIELD."

They looked around for a place to give them more cover.

"I am afraid I have been stalling," Zola continued as Steve spotted a grate in the floor and ran over to it, Olivia urging Natasha to follow, "Admit it, it's better this way. We're all of us...out of time."

Steve yanked the grate off, moving Olivia and Natasha to jump down before he joined them.

"Steve!" Olivia shouted, having gotten one of her batons positioned and tossing him the other to put on the other side of him.

He activated the shield feature, creating a field around the three of them just as the missile hit and blew up the base around them.

~8~

Olivia offered Sam Wilson a sheepish and apologetic look when he opened the door of his home after Steve had knocked, knowing they all must look a sight. While her batons had kept them safe from the explosion, it hadn't protected the building around them which had crumbled on top of them. Between her and Steve, they had managed to maneuver the rubble enough for them all to escape and had only barely managed to evade the STRIKE team that had been rooting around the rubble on the surface.

"…hey?" Sam blinked at them.

"I'm sorry about this," Steve spoke, "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha added.

Sam looked between them, before stating, "Not everyone," and stepping aside to let them into his home. He glanced up and down to make sure they hadn't been followed, that they'd be safe, before he shut the door.

~8~

Olivia sighed as she finished tending to the few wounds that Steve had sustained in their escape. As always, he'd insisted that she and Natasha be taken care of first before he allowed her to treat his minor scrapes and cuts. It hadn't taken much doing, her batons had kept them quite safe, it was just the getting out of the base that roughed them up. Steve had taken the forefront of getting them out while she had kept Natasha between them for more protection. So it had been quite easy to get Natasha patched up. She had, however, refused to tend to herself until Steve had been see to and the longer he fought her on that the longer she'd go untreated, as she'd argued when he inevitably refused to be treated.

"As much as I do enjoy this view," she told him gently, "I rather hate when it's in this context."

That managed to draw a small smirk from him, "And you say I'm terrible."

Olivia shook her head at that, knowing why he'd said it. He was currently standing in front of her without his shirt on, having gotten a small scratch on the right side of his chest when he'd flung the grate of the base away. She reached up to lightly trace the injury, knowing that it was likely already healing under the bandage she'd applied. Luckily she had had her medical bag with her and hadn't needed to dig into Sam's own supplies though he had offered it to them along with the use of his shower.

Absently her touch shifted to the necklace he was wearing, the one she had given him almost 70 years ago. She had told him it would be easier to treat his injury if he took the necklace off, but he refused. He hadn't taken it off since she'd given it to him, he wasn't going to start now. So he'd held it away from the wound till she was finished. She let her fingers trace over the objects dangling from the end of it. Even after all these years he still wore Bucky's dogtags too. She had been lucky to find them for him, it was a small comfort, to have that when he'd lost his friend, but it was a comfort nonetheless.

Steve reached up and guided her hand from the dangling charms to his heart, letting her feel that it was still beating, knowing she needed that comfort when her own hand went to the necklace he had given her, fiddling with the trinkets on the end.

"We're alright," he reassured her.

"I know," she tried to smile, "I just worry about how long it'll last."

"As long as I've got you beside me, I'll always be alright."

She smiled genuinely this time, "I feel the same."

He returned her smile, reaching out to take her left hand and kiss her knuckles, before they turned to head into the bedroom Sam had let them use to freshen up in. He'd forgotten his shirt out on one of the dressers and grabbed it to put on. He was honestly surprised that Natasha hadn't made some sort of comment about how it was not-so-old-fashioned of him to be walking around without a shirt on. When he looked over, she was sitting on the bed, sad and thoughtful, glancing in their direction but didn't seem to really be paying attention.

"Tasha?" Olivia called, moving to sit beside her on the bed, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she huffed.

Olivia cracked a small smile, "Now who's the bad liar?"

"What's going on?" Steve asked, managing to get the shirt on and lean in the doorway of the bathroom.

Natasha sighed, "When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but...I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," Steve joked, getting her to smile faintly.

"If it helps, I don't think anyone could tell when Fury lied to them," Olivia offered, reaching out to put a hand on Natasha's shoulder, "If someone was skilled enough to lie to him and him not notice?" she shook her head, "I don't think there's hope for anyone else to tell the difference either."

Natasha looked between the two of them, both of them trying to make her feel better despite the lies she had told them herself, "I owe you."

"It's ok," Steve waved it off at the same time that Olivia added, "You don't."

She snorted slightly, "If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your lives, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?"

Steve looked at her for a long moment, weighing her question and how it wasn't just HIS life he would be trusting her to save. He looked at Olivia, sitting beside Natasha, and thought back to the friendship the woman had built with the two of them over the course of the year. He nodded, "I would now."

"And, as we've repeatedly established," Olivia joked, nudging Natasha, "I'm terrible at not being honest."

That earned more of a smile from Natasha as she looked between the two of them, "You know, you guys seem pretty chipper for people who just found out they died for nothing."

"I refuse to think it was for nothing," Olivia stated, "The world is still spinning, and maybe this is just god's way of putting us where we're most needed. We might have died of old age by now and we wouldn't have been able to help stop HYDRA again."

Steve nodded, "I just like to know who I'm fighting."

There was a soft knock on the door and they looked over to see Sam there, "I made breakfast. If you guys...eat that sort of thing."

Olivia stood, "I don't know about them, but I'm starved," she made her way over to Sam, leaving the room with him, "Do you happen to have any HOT tea?"

Steve chuckled and looked at Natasha, "Up for some grub?"

She nodded and stood, leaving the room with Steve.

~8~

"Never thought I'd see the day," Sam remarked to Natasha as they sat at his kitchen table, "Captain America and Major Britannia doing my dishes."

Natasha smirked at that, shaking her head as they watched the two super soldiers doing exactly that, wash and dry Sam's dishes.

"You know I have a dishwasher, right?" he called to them.

"No harm in a little old-fashioned work," Steve taunted back, though the joke was more for Natasha.

"Speaking of old-fashioned," Sam sobered up, thinking about everything they'd told him of what they'd experienced the last few days. Mutinies and manhunts, evil AIs and missile launches, they lived some life, "You really got nearly blown up by a missile in an old army base?"

Olivia looked down at that, now that they'd had a moment of calm…it was upsetting not just that SHIELD had tried to kill them, they could only assume it was a compromised portion of the facility. But because the base had been so important to the founding of SHIELD, to the creation of Captain America, and now it had been tarnished by becoming HYDRA's foothold.

"Yeah," Steve answered, solemn and serious once more.

"So, the question is," Natasha sighed, "Who in SHIELD could launch a domestic missile strike?"

"And what did they tell other agents," Olivia handed the last dish to Steve and drained the sink, turning to face Sam and Natasha, "I can't imagine a missile strike goes unnoticed by the others. And I refuse to believe every agent of SHIELD has been compromised."

Steve set the last plate to the side and turned, pressing a kiss to Olivia's hair as he turned. He knew she was thinking about Sharon Carter. If there was one person in SHIELD he didn't want to think of being compromised, it would be her too. DID any other agents know? What had they been told and how believable was the excuse?

"It would have to be someone with authorization and enough clout that they could cover it up," Steve sighed, "Only one I can think of is Pierce."

"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," Natasha reminded him.

"He can't be working alone," Olivia realized, "The algorithm Zola created was on the Lemurian Star."

"So was Jasper Sitwell," Natasha realized.

"So, the real question is…how do the three most wanted people in Washington kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?" Steve asked.

"I don't think a public display of affection will work quite so well this time," Olivia mused, before holding up a finger at Natasha when she opened her mouth, "And no, a very public wedding between Steve and I is not on the table for that."

Natasha mock-pouted when her suggestion was shot down before she could make it, even as a joke.

"The answer is," Sam looked between them, "You don't," he turned and picked up a file, holding it out to Steve.

Steve reached out and took the file, coming to join them at the table with Olivia and opening the file. It was a number of records, Sam's personal records it appeared, detailing his skill set, training, his tours and other information regarding his service in the army.

"What's this?" Steve asked as they flipped through it, looking at the handful of notes and pictures attached to the file.

"Call it a resume," Sam shrugged as he got up, allowing the three of them some time to sift through the details of the packet.

Natasha looked over at some of the photos that fell out, seeing one of Sam with what could only be his para-rescue team. She blinked, recognizing the landscape and the date from the stamp in the corner, "Is this Bakhmala?" she looked up at him, sounding almost impressed, "The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?" she gave Olivia and Steve a look for that, "You didn't say he was a para-rescue."

Olivia paused when she came to a photo of Sam with his arm around another man's shoulders, both of them standing in a way she had often seen when it came to Steve and Bucky. It was something she recognized with her and Peggy as well, the stance of two men who were not just partners but truly close friends.

"Is this Riley?" she looked over at Sam, asking him gently, not wanting to upset him if it brought up the painful memories he'd mentioned during their talks.

Sam swallowed hard, but nodded, "Yeah."

She nodded as well, not asking any more about it as she slid the picture to Steve to see as well.

Natasha, however, was caught up on the fact that Sam was para-rescue and involved in the Khandil mission, "I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs," she spoke, eyeing Sam a bit more critically now, "What did you use, a stealth chute?"

"No," Sam shook his head, moving back to the table and pulling out the last file to hand to them, "These."

Olivia's eyes widened as she saw schematics for what looked like wings. There were diagrams of weapons caches, rockets, tech. But, even more, there weren't just sketches of an idea, but an actual prototype. There was a picture of Sam standing there, wearing a suit with metal wings on the back of it. It made more sense now, the added guilt that Sam felt about the death of his friend. If he had been parachuting down, there was so little control and ways to maneuver it to do anything else but land when it was released. There would be a way to talk yourself into believing there was nothing you could do, because of the parachute.

But something like this? With as much control as it appeared to give, the ability to maneuver and fight back? If an attack against Riley happened so quickly Sam couldn't help, it would hit him more. Because he would feel he SHOULD have been able to fight back and help his friend, but he couldn't.

"I thought you said you were a pilot," Steve glanced up at Sam.

Sam smirked, "I never said pilot."

"He's right," Olivia murmured, before looking over at Sam, "Sam…you need to understand what you're offering to do and what will happen if you do this. You're going to be putting your life in danger."

"Nothing different than over there," he shrugged.

"You'll be wanted," she emphasized, "If we fail, we're going to be seen as traitors and hunted down by every resource SHIELD…and HYDRA…can spare. You could get hurt, you could die. Everything you have going for you, you'll be giving up. The VA, your safety, your freedom. It'll be like going back there all over again."

"We can't ask you to do this, Sam," Steve agreed, "You got out for a good reason."

It was clear to Sam, in how Steve looked over at Olivia only a moment after he said that, that the man was regretting he hadn't gotten out too. The last conversation they had was coming back to him. These two soldiers had been in it for decades now, they had done everything for this country and now the country, one of the largest defense organizations meant to keep it safe, something founded on what they'd done for their countries, was trying to take them both out.

Steve regretted he hadn't gotten out before it reached this point, where both he and Olivia were in danger at every turn, targeted for some reason they couldn't fully understand.

These two had done their part for the country, and while he couldn't pay them back for everything they'd lost, he could at least do this, give them support when they needed it.

That was what his work at the VA was all about, helping other soldiers when they needed it.

"Dude," he shook his head, smiling at them, "Major Britannia and Captain America need my help? There's no better reason to get back in."

A small part of him he wasn't ready to listen to yet, thought, maybe, just maybe, this was why he had survived the war, maybe it was like Olivia said when he'd heard them talking before he got to the room, that it was god's way of getting him where he needed to be as well. If he'd died over there, he wouldn't be here now to help these two heroes.

"Thank you, Sam," Olivia smiled.

"Where can we get our hands on one of these things?" Steve asked, giving Sam a firm nod of respect and gratitude.

Sam let out a breath, "The last one is at Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall."

Steve and Olivia looked at each other, before glancing over at Natasha, who shrugged with a small smirk on her face.

Steve smirked as well as he turned back to Sam, "Shouldn't be a problem."

Olivia let out a faint chuckle, "From medic to marauder," she shook her head, "This will be quite the story to tell Peggy."

"Didn't she want to be a pirate once?" Steve asked, recalling a story Olivia had told him of buried treasure and pirate ships.

Olivia smiled, "She did," she mused, "She got to be one when we were children," she took a breath, "It's about time I got to be one," she nodded, "Let's break into Fort Meade."

"Well, we've got the boss's ok," Natasha teased Steve.

He just rolled his eyes at her, "Let's do this."

A/N: And the team starts coming together :)

Did anyone else feel bad for Steve when Zola was taunting him with the brief footage of the Winter Soldier? He finds out his man is a HYDRA agent, has actually assassinated the people Natasha told him about, AND murdered Howard Stark...and we all know who the Winter Soldier is. Just imagining what Steve must have been thinking at the time, about the horrible things the soldier did and how he'd have to stop him to take the advantage away from HYDRA...and then later realize the soldier he'd been ready to take out was Bucky? :'(

Some notes on reviews...

That was definitely something I could see Steve doing when he gets injured. Like, for most of his life he'd probably try to downplay his injuries and illnesses, but having someone like Liv understand him...I could see him taking advantage of the injuries to be able to spend time with her :) I can say Steve hasn't quite told her about his efforts during training, but she will find out about it before this series is over ;)

Lol, we'll have to see if Liv ever gets used to jeans :)

Oh yes, Sam and Natasha. I picture them being those people off to the side whenever Steve and Liv have a sweet moment just fake crying and going 'our babies are growing up so fast' lol :)