Nat's Chicago Safe House
Minutes After Sam Reaches The Surface

For almost two months, Steve and Nat had tried everything that they could to find out what had happened to Sam and Teagan. Nat had contacted anyone she thought might be able to help, but not a single one of them had any clue as to where the hidden Hydra base they may have been taken to was located.

Steve had taken a chance and contacted T'Challa, but even with his resources there had been no trace. He did not go into specifics of what had happened due to not wanting to worry Bucky, who had taken up residence at a village near the capital city. He could imagine the lecture that he was eventually going to get from him about running into danger just like he used to back in the day. And he did not want Bucky to leave the safety of being hidden in Wakanda with the hope of being able to help.

The only other thing Steve had considered was calling in Tony…but he was hesitant for different reasons.

He was almost sure that even Tony would not be able find anything considering the lengths Nat and T'Challa had gone to. His main hesitation was the fact that Tony was surely still mad at him. And if he refused to help find Sam because of such a petty reason, Steve didn't know if he would ever be able to forgive Tony. So to him, it was better to not ask then to be turned down.

The two of them were now back at the same Chicago safe house they had been at before leaving for the failed mission. Nat had suggested after a few weeks of recovering back at Clint's safe house that they move here for safety reasons. He had found himself sometimes just staring at the front door, hoping that it would just open with Sam and Teagan strolling in. Maybe Nat figured a change of scenery would be good for him.

Steve could only hope that if the two of them managed to escape wherever they were, that they would try to return to somewhere familiar and that they had been safe in. They had even made a stop at the South Dakota safe house on the way here, just in case they had headed there, but there was no sign of them.

Sitting at the kitchen table picking at their lunches, neither he nor Nat had really spoken much all day, both still upset after her contacts having informed them after breakfast that there were still no leads for them to go on.

Beep...beep...buzzz…beep...beep...buzzz…the sound of a ringtone and vibration interrupted the quiet of the room.

"What is that?" Steve asked while poking at the meal before him as the sound continued to go off from somewhere nearby.

"It's my emergency burner phone!" Nat exclaimed as she jumped up from the table to run across the room to where she had tossed it on the table by the front door upon arrival a few days ago. They both kept their bags mostly pack in hopes of getting that call which would tell them where to find their friends. But she always took out the phone and left it somewhere they would be able to hear it ring...just in case.

"I don't recognize the number," she turned back to look at him while holding the phone in her hand.

"Take the chance," he told her, nodding in understanding that it could compromise their position if it was a trap.

Swiping her finger across the screen, Nat calmly answered, "The Malevolent Spider Pest Control."

"Nat! Thank God you're alive!"

"Sam!" the relief palpable in her voice as she turned to face him while he stood up and rushed over to her. Pressing the speaker button, "Are you alright? Where are you? Where's Teagan?"

"We're at Keeling's real Hydra base. We were captured and have been held hostage for…I don't know how long. We just managed to kind-of get free."

There were a couple of parts of his comments that worried Steve, and he was not sure which one to start with.

"Are the both of you currently safe?" he asked.

There was too long of a pause.

"I am."

Steve looked over at Nat who looked as worried as he probably did.

"Where's Teagan?" Nat asked.

"She's still inside the base. She's…I don't know…I think she's trying to take it down all by herself."

"What?" he let the word slip out. "How?"

"Her powers. Keeling fucked up by threatening my life and they changed again. She's using them to…I'm not exactly sure. But she got me out of there while she stayed behind."

Steve knew that unless Sam was sure, he would not accuse her of doing anything wrong.

"How long have we been gone?" Sam asked.

"Fifty-eight days," Nat told him.

"Fuck!" they heard followed by the sound of crashing items. "No wonder she broke down."

He worried exactly what had happened if Sam was saying that.

"Nat, I'll grab our gear. Head to the jet. Trace this call and get us in the air," he instructed while taking the phone from her. Nat just nodded her head as she raced through the door, grabbing her bag as she went.

Steve need to know more about what they were walking into.

"Sam, what happened?"

"Keeling happened. He's kept Teagan in some damn sensory deprivation hood for all of this time, up until less than an hour ago. Steve, she thought that all of us were dead. Now, she's on some kind of revenge tour. The way she was questioning Keeling, I think she's going to do something drastic, to all of them. He's been torturing her since we arrived, and I think she want's him to pay for that more than getting free from the base. She's just not thinking straight right now."

It broke his heart hearing just that small bit of what she had been going through for all of this time. Locked up like that while thinking they were all dead, with no hope of rescue? With her already fragile mental state, especially when it came to Keeling, Steve was worried how far she would take her payback.

"What about you? Did Keeling do anything to you?" he asked, running up the stairs to his room.

"Not really. But I did spend part of this time in medical."

He was grabbing his bag from off the bed he had claimed, but that comment made him stop.

"Sam, why were you in medical?"

"At the base in Colorado. I was shot with an electric net that shut down my wings. When I crashed, I got a mild concussion and an injured wrist. They kept me secured to a bed and unconscious for…I don't know how long. I'd guess at least a couple of weeks since all my injuries were healed by the time I woke up. Then they moved me to the prisoner level where Teagan was, only neither of us knew it."

Steve headed toward the front door again, glad that it sounded like Sam as at least healthy for now.

Natasha's voice suddenly appeared over the phone, "I have your phone's signal locked into the jet."

"I really like your tricks sometimes, Nat," Sam told her, finally sounding slightly happy.

"Luckily we're only about forty-five minutes out if I push the engines," Nat informed the both of them, knowing where the signal exactly was now. "Can you stay safe until we get there?"

"Yes. I have two of my own personal Hydra bodyguards, thanks to Teagan."

Steve ran across the yard, Nat lifting the jet off the ground the second she heard his feet his the floor.

"Can you get to her and stop her from doing anything rash?" Steve asked.

"Unfortunately, no. She ordered the guards to not let me back in the base. I'm stuck outside in a building close by," Sam told him as he made it to a seat near the front.

Steve gave a heavy sign, more worried that Teagan was going to overestimate her powers and make a mistake that might get her recaptured, injured, or killed.

"Just sit tight until we get there, Sam. We'll just have to hope for the best."

"Sam, leave the phone on, that way we'll now if something happens and can be prepared," Nat suggested.

"Alright. But guys, please hurry."

"We're already on our way," Steve reassured him as the jets kicked in.

Interior of Hydra Base

It was a long while later before Teagan finally made her way back to the office where the others were just waiting for their next command. To make space, she put the other guards into the hallway with the door open in case she needed them for something. That left her and Bradshaw alone together. But she felt more in control of herself, even if it was a darker part that she had let take over.

Sam was safe and now it was time for everyone at this base to pay for their crimes.

A couple of key questions to Bradshaw were all that it took for her to decide how to proceed with taking down this base. Each level could be put onto lock-down separately and then the chemical that would kill everyone could be released, guards, agents, technicians, scientist, medical personnel. But that made her think of something else.

Turning back to Bradshaw, Teagan worried about the answers he might give.

"All of the medical experiments that were done to me. Are those samples still at this location or at another?"

"They are all here on the experimental level," he told her, his eyes going wide.

He may have to answer but that didn't mean that he wanted to. There was a stiffness to his posture that just formed. It seemed like he was worried about this line of questioning. She needed to know what else he might be hiding.

"What type of experiments were being done with them? Are they similar to what you made us think was going to happen in Colorado? Give me details."

"Yes," he admitted. "We have been using willing agents as test subjects. Some received modified injections of a serum created using your tissue samples trying to recreate your powers."

"Were any of them successful?" she dreaded his answer.

"No. Either there was no change or they became sick and died."

Teagan let out the breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding. At least that meant there were no others like her out there. But if there had been, then there would have been no reason for Hydra to recapture her.

Then she thought about all of the different procedures that she'd been subjected to throughout the years. Some worse than others. She braced herself for the next set of questions.

"What about the eggs that were removed from me? What happened with them?"

Bradshaw closed his eyes, a grimace on his face as he answered. That did not bode well, she knew.

"They are still frozen. At least the ones are that were not used for procedures."

Her body suddenly felt hollow.

"What procedures?"

"We impregnated three women to see if the children born would also have your abilities. We thought that maybe it would be passed genetically to your offspring."

Now her stomach lurched and she had to put her hand on the wall for support. They had made her a biological mother multiple times without her even knowing it.

"And what happened?"

"They were all born insignificant."

Her face scrunched up hearing that. Born. While she had been a helpless prisoner, Hydra had made her a mother. Three times. Her fingers were gripping something so hard her hand began to hurt. Then she thought about how he described them, so she asked, "Insignificant? What does that mean to you?"

"Their DNA showed zero signs of any evolutionary trait, powerless, so they were useless to us."

Her children? Useless? Her breathing was ragged, her chest starting to pound.

"What did you do with them?"

Bradshaw's face became a horrible façade of anger and worry, but he couldn't help but answer. His weak voice told her just as much as the words did.

"They were disposed of. Hydra is not a daycare."

The next few minutes were a blur of an adrenaline fueled fury.

Marcus Keeling's Office

Due to the commands that had already given to him, Henry Bradshaw could do nothing but stand motionless inside of the tornado of destruction that was now Teagan MacKenna.

In her rampage, she was smashing every single piece of furniture that she could find, save the desk and computer. Shards of porcelain and glass fell across his face as they shattered on the wall next to where he was standing. The shelves mounted behind Keeling's desk fell to the floor having been struck with a shock-stick she had taken from one of the guards upon her return. The way that she had been absently handling it made him wonder if she even realized that it was in her hands.

On the wall prominently displayed was a tapestry of the Hydra symbol. It was ripped down and tossed out into the hallway, where he could see the guards watching the chaos going on inside the room. They were only commanded to remain quiet and not leave so they were possibly enjoying the show.

The filing cabinet was turned over, the paperwork from Project Cherry Tree now scattered across the concrete floor. He could see pictures from throughout the years of Teagan and even some of the people she'd used her powers on. Keeling had kept a very good record of the work he had done for Hydra, it seemed.

Bradshaw then noticed that the crashing sounds had stopped and changed. Looking to the corner of the room, he saw that Teagan was slumped against the wall, her face buried in her hands, her legs drawn up to her chest, as she cried for the loss of the children she never knew that she had.

After a few minutes of having to silently listen to her cry, Teagan finally addressed him.

"Did they have names?"

Because she was not actually looking at him, Bradshaw knew that he didn't have to answer. But there was no reason for him not to. She could just make him.

"No. They were designated PCT-01, 02, and 03. Two females and a male."

"How long did they live?"

"The oldest was only six months," he told her.

"How long ago was this?"

Henry thought for a moment before answering, "They would be between the ages of 11 and 8 years by now."

"And you just killed them? All because they didn't…" her voice broke for a moment. "Couldn't you have at least taken them somewhere and given them to somebody? Let someone else raise them? Why did you have to kill them?"

"With all of the DNA testing that people are doing nowadays, we couldn't take a chance that years down the road that someone linked them to a member of your family. The question of how you had children after your supposed death could have brought us unwanted attention."

"Were they at least buried in a cemetery?"

"After being euthanized, they were disposed of in the incinerator."

Teagan slowly stood up, her red hair a wild mess and brushing the bits of debris off of her before walking to stand right before him. Her eyes began to shine, her facial expression formed of one of pure pain.

"Do you even feel sorry or upset at what you did to them?"

"No."

All that she could do was frozenly stare at the monsterous man before her.

If she had ever wondered how sick and delusional the people who made up Hydra ever were, she had just gotten her answer.

"Then I don't see why I shouldn't feel the same way considering what I'm about to do to all of you bastards."

Bradshaw's eyes widened at her words, but he held his tongue from saying anything else. His life was now hers and he knew it.

Teagan turned her eyes on Bradshaw, deciding that this needed to end now.

"How do you secure the floors and release the gas?"

"I can only do it from my office, a couple of floors higher," his voice trembled with fear.

"Then we are all taking a trip," she told him before giving out instructions to them. "There's a couple of things that we are going to take care of first though."

Hydra Base
Ground Level Hanger Area

After his one attempt at going for the door, Sam was informed that they would restrain him if necessary to follow their command. So he was stuck pacing around the small room as the two Hydra agents guarded the windows and doors. They were on the lookout for anyone that would mean him harm while also preventing him from leaving. They had been here for a short time before the one at the door they had entered through gave a signal.

Seeing them moving into a protective position, Sam headed to the window and watched as another Hydra agent made a line for them. He did not seem threatening, especially since he was carrying a very familiar box in his hands.

"Steve, Nat, there's a single agent coming towards us with a box," he spoke into the phone.

"Are you in any danger?" Steve asked from over the open phone line.

"No, I don't think so. Let him in. He's not a threat," Sam then informed the two guards, who obeyed by opening the door.

"I have been instructed to give this only to Sam Wilson, also known as the Falcon," the new guy stood there looking right at him, as if verifying who Sam was.

"That's me," he told him.

Taking a couple of steps closer, he then put the box down before Sam. Removing a set of keys from his pocket, he removed the padlock and opened the lid. Turning it around so Sam could see inside, he found that this was indeed the same box that Keeling had his wings placed into.

"These are yours," the man nodded to him.

"What is it?" Nat asked curious.

"Teagan had someone retrieve my wings and sent them to me," he explained as the guard took out his gun and began readying it.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked him.

"I have orders to kill anyone without the password that tries to leave this base," the man said turning towards the door. "Also, I am to provide backup for your protection."

"Password?" he asked as the man continued walking.

"The female, the one that I have to obey. She told me a word that anyone authorized to leave this base will know. All others are to be eliminated with extreme prejudice."

"What is the password?" Sam asked.

"Absolutely," he answered before walking out into the hanger to obey his commands. Hearing that word told him that at least he knew Teagan had been fine as of a few minutes ago. Hopefully she stayed that way until he figured out way to get to her.

The guard was to shoot and kill anyone he decided was an escaping Hydra agent. Sam felt his shoulders slump know that he knew Teagan was going forward with her plan of revenge. He couldn't get back inside, and it looked like nobody was leaving here either. There was no telling what they would eventually find once Steve and Nat arrived.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, there was still twenty-five minutes until they might get here.

Interior of Hydra Base

Walking through the halls with her security escort, not one of the Hydra agents tried to stop them or even question the group as to where they were headed. In the lead was their base commander Bradshaw, walking tall while still acting like he owned the place. How wrong their assumptions were on that count. Surrounding her on the sides and behind were the four remaining guards from below. Not a single one of them even tried to get help or sound an alarm. The others must not know who she was by sight or they might have gathered something was not right with her being there while not restrained.

Reaching his office, she and Bradshaw walked inside while the guards took up positions on the door outside to keep anyone else from entering.

"Once the levels are locked down, is there a way for them to escape?" she asked looking around the nicely decorated room.

"No. The base was designed to contain Hydra's enemies, our own people, or anyone else already inside," he told her.

Walking around the office, Teagan worked out her idea just a few steps further. There was no way she was letting any Hydra personnel escape. But then she began to wonder about Bradshaw's statement, curious as to the exact wording of it, making her wonder if she and Sam had been the only ones here who did not want to be.

"Are there any other prisoners at this base who are not Hydra?"

"Yes," he simply told her.

Exterior Hanger Level

Sam saw the guards tensing up again, so he moved towards them to see what was happening now. Across the way, a small group of people were emerging from the base, heading for them with their own protective guards surrounding them.

"Steve, Nat, we have more movement from inside the base. I don't think it's hostile though."

"What do you have?" Steve asked.

"A small group looking to be civilians, guarded, heading for my building," he told them.

The guards were still obeying their orders, their weapons trained on them as they drew close. They reached the outside guard who questioned them for the password, which they must have given because he allowed them to continue on to his building.

"Open up the door," Sam instructed them.

Reaching the building, the group of five hesitantly stepped inside. He could see that between the three females and two males that all of them looked to be around college age to just past. Looking around at the guarded room, they finally spotted him and one of them spoke.

"I know you," the youngest female said, her eyes wide.

"Who are all of you?" he asked all of them while looking at them.

A different girl answered, "I'm Lauren Williams. Are you Sam?"

He was a bit surprised to hear her know his name, but he nodded.

"I was instructed to tell you that my father works for Secretary Thaddeus Ross."

Sam straightened as he figured out very quickly what was going on.

"Were all of you prisoners of Hydra?"

"Yes," a young man in his mid-twenties answered. "We have all been here for a while on the security level. We figured out that all of our family members are high up in the government somehow. We think Hydra was using us to blackmail them to insure they did as they were requested."

Sam asked a few more questions before heading over to the phone with the open line. They learned their names and who their parents were, along with how long they had individually been there.

"Steve, Nat, did you get all of that?" he asked picking it up and taking it off of speaker.

"Yes, I just can't believe it," Steve responded. "We're going to have to call in the bigger authorities after we get there."

"I found out how Hydra has been able to keep themselves hidden. I've looked up three of the five so far and found that they are not even listed as missing," Nat started to explain. "Lauren is listed as traveling throughout Europe while taking a break from college. William is supposed to be on a missionary trip in Angola and out of contact due to the remote region. Brian is listed as a drop-out after his first year of college and having joined a cult."

"They were made to disappear," Sam stated as he looked them over. "All of them were instead being held here as prisoners."

"Without Teagan being in their custody, they had to resort to other ways to get honest people to do their bidding. She would have been able to command them to pass along anything they needed. Instead, they held family members hostage," but Nat was just stating the obvious.

"Sam, if Teagan is getting any innocent people out of there…"

"I know, Steve. She's going to do something drastic," he simply said.

It hurt him so much to know that Teagan's mind had been so damaged due to Keeling's treatment of her over the past weeks. And during that entire time her soul had been shattered into thinking that not only he, but that Steve and Nat were also dead. She had probably been strung up in that damn cell in the dark to hang while believing that nobody was ever coming for her.

There was no way to even know how badly she might have been hurt in other ways. Had he sexually abused her while he had been down in medical unconscious? For Keeling, doing so would have only solidified her own beliefs that she was once again lost to the world with nobody to help or save her. The way he had been talking just before Sam had managed to get a hold of the guard made him think that he had not touched her. That he had been biding his time before doing so.

He hoped that with some more time together that he would be able to help her get over these horrible weeks. He remembered how broken she had partially been when they first met, but there was no telling how badly damaged her mind now was thanks to the isolation and tortures she'd endured. He might have to head some place where it would be just the two of them for a while. There were going to be some hard times as he tried to make her feel safe once again.

Sam knew he had to be prepared to somehow get back in there and find Teagan. He knew that there was a chance he could take the guards out, but now they were needed to keep the other prisoners safe. Once Steve and Nat got here, then he would have the backup he needed to save her.

Walking over to the box, he pulled out his wings with the hope that they got here soon.