What's up, guys? ^^

Here is the next chapter. This one is a bit graphic regarding violence and such, so if you don't feel comfortable reading it, I'm just giving you a heads up beforehand.

Thank you so much for the reviews, favorites, and follows! I'm really happy you're enjoying reading the story as much as I am writing it. On with it, then! Enjoy ;)

Chapter Three

Back in SHIELD, the agents were trained to endure different kinds of situations: situations where you had no water, no food, no armor, no weapons. Sometimes all of these things were lacking. The most difficult thing Sharon ever had to endure in SHIELD was the torture lessons, though. They were taught how to block what happened to their body, so that they weren't affected by the physical distress. Pain was something every agent in every intelligence agency in the world could block out, due to the extensive training they'd had.

Sharon, however, wasn't sure her training would help her.

When Everett left the room after asking her once more if she'd been inclined to share intel, and agent Gilbert took over interrogation, she knew things would get more complicated. She just had no idea how much.

It started with simple questions. Gilbert would ask her personal information, how close she'd been to Steve (she hadn't told him about the kiss, for obvious reasons), and what she'd done to help him, before moving on to the core of the investigation.

When she refused to answer his whereabouts, though, he slapped her, hard. And when she still didn't speak, he did it again.

And again.

On and on it went, with the same question being asked between the hits, until her face was bloodied and she couldn't feel her lips anymore. She guessed it was split, but there wasn't exactly a mirror around. Then the slaps turned into punches.

"Where is he, Agent Carter?" Gilbert asked. For a man his size – Sharon guessed he wasn't even as tall as herself – he had a mean right hook. "Look at you. Bleeding for someone you don't even know. Steve isn't the y god you and the rest of your family think he is. Just because he has an American flag on his shield doesn't mean he represents this country."

Sharon spit blood and turned to look at him. Her voice sounded funny. "And being a CIA agent doesn't make you any better than Hydra. You're still torturing their own just like they do."

She got a slap for that, but she sure felt better. An American intelligence agency resorting to torture wasn't surprising, but they should be better. SHIELD wasn't stellar, but they were proud to say they didn't torture people. At least not that she knew of.

"I am sorry for doing this," Gilbert walked over to the door and knocked three times "but people could die because of your unwillingness to cooperate". Someone opened it and gave him a suitcase. Sharon had watched enough movies and studied enough about methods of interrogation to know what was inside. Her interrogator opened it in front of her, and there they were: ten sharp long surgical needles, slightly thicker than usual.

What came next was way crueler. Sharon knew they needed the intel she had as soon as possible, considering the short amount of time it took for them to go from normal interrogation to torture. She hadn't exactly expected such a medieval procedure.

"That's archaic, even for the CIA" Sharon commented as Gilbert forcefully opened her hands. There wasn't anywhere to run considering her shackles were buckled in so tight she couldn't lift her wrists from the table. So she could only watch as he inserted the needles beneath her fingernails, and endure the pain as much as she could.

It was like fire was eating away her hands. She could feel everything, from the tip of her fingers to the beginning of her nails, where the needles dug deep under the flesh. Blood ran over the tabletop in her lap, but she couldn't care less. It was taking everything she had to stay quiet.

Sharon would be damned if she was going to crack and say something. Carters don't quit, aunt Peggy used to tell her when she was little. That motto followed her as the years went by, and even though Aunt Peggy got older and lost most of the sparkle in her eyes, she never quit. She had the fierceness and strength of a leader, and the heart of an angel. She really was Sharon's role model.

And Sharon didn't like to disappoint her role models. So she took deep, even breaths and held on. Gilbert left after installing his new gadgets into her, and the minutes went by without a sound from the other side of the door. She was alone in her pain. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew they were watching and waiting for the moment she'd break down. Time was a torture of its own when a person was suffering, and minutes seemed to stretch into hours. After what felt like days to her, Gilbert returned. At this point, Sharon was covered in a layer of cold sweat, and she was trembling from exhaustion.

"Are we more cooperative now?" he asked. "I trust you had plenty of time to think about the consequences of your actions. You still have time to call this off. Tell us what you know, and after the info is verified, you can go home."

"To a prison?" she asked, breathless. "No, thank you."

Gilbert sat down in front of her. "Look, I'm trying to help you, despite everything. We will get the intel we need from you, and we will find the Captain. The amount of discomfort you'll be in while we do that is entirely up to you." He stopped speaking for a moment, and when he resumed his speech, his look seemed to burn right through her. "Why are you still resisting? He's just a man. You don't owe him anything. Rogers doesn't have to know we got the intel from you."

Sharon started to laugh, in spite of her pain. "So you think this is about a high school crush? That I don't want him to stop liking me?" She leaned forward, as she often did, to make her point. "I'm a Carter, so when people come to me with secrets, I tend to keep them. You should do the same. Might even get you a better job."

Gilbert shrugged. "If that's what you think. The next step won't be pretty." He walked over to the door and opened it. As if on cue (which proved they had been listening to the entire exchange, Sharon thought) two soldiers stormed in with some sort of barrel between them.

She rolled her eyes, her stomach almost hurting in anticipation. "Waterboarding? What are you, Al Qaeda?"

"It proved to be especially effective," Gilbert commented. He took a long sheet out of the suitcase, which was kept in a small compartment, and unraveled it.

Despite her bravado, Sharon started to struggle. It was impossible to stand still knowing they would simulate drowning multiple times, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. As a child, she had been afraid of drowning in the sea. This was going to be so much worse. As Gilbert took a stand behind her and wrapped the sheet roughly around her face multiple times, she just had the time to take a breath as deep as she could before the soldiers poured the water from the barrel in her face.

It was both shocking and pleasant, at least in the first few seconds. The water cooled her face, which had been hurt quite a bit from the multiple beatings she had endured. After the initial reaction, though, fear started to set in. She couldn't breathe in the slightest, and after a while, her struggle combined with Gilberto's brute touch made her swallow water.

Sharon guessed dying was a better alternative to what she had to go through after that. It was despairing, not being able to draw breath, and swallowing water as pain and terror flooded her. The worst part was the inability to block out her feelings. Because they were messing with such a vital aspect of her body, she couldn't zone out like she wanted to. Her whole being turned into a huge mess of expectation for the next breath she'd be able to draw. When she thought she wouldn't be able to take it anymore, the soldiers stopped, and she was able to cough and vomit most of the water she had drunk. A few seconds later – and only after Gilbert asked her to share her intel yet again -, they started the torture all over again.

It was during the third round of torture that she heard it. At first, a sound like someone punching a concrete wall. Then, the sound got louder, and she heard her torturers talking amidst her agony. "What the hell is that?" one of the soldiers asked. "It's none of our business. We need to get this over with," Gilbert replied.

He never got to finish it.

As Sharon struggled and tried to understand what was happening, the sheet wrapped on her face suddenly pulled, she heard a scream, and then the pressure on it was gone. Two grunts, and the she felt the barrel being somehow gently lowered by her side. With the water gone, she spit water and was finally – finally – able to breathe, albeit not completely. The amount of water in her lungs had to be problematic, she thought. She couldn't stop coughing and vomiting water.

Someone gently removed the sheet from her face and knelt beside her. "Hey, hey, easy," a voice she already knew all too well murmured. "We're getting you out of here." Steve? she thought. Impossible. What is he doing here? It really wasn't impossible. There he was, as Steve rather than Captain America. Her mind registered how strange it was for him to be here – with Sam and Wanda, even – without his shield. Her conscious mind, however, didn't give a damn about that right now. She had never been so happy to see someone.

Both soldiers and Gilbert were unconscious on the floor, and the barrel of water was untouched in the corner. Probably Wanda's work. Sam was in the next room – she could see him through the highway, now that the door was open.

"Sam, the needles," Steve called, as his friend stood up and joined them in the interrogation room.

"Oh shit," Sam said as he inspected her hands. "How long has these been put in you?"

Sharon tried to remember. "A couple of hours, maybe. I don't remember", she said. Her voice was stiff and hurt from the water she had ingested.

"Can you take them out?" Steve asked, getting closer to Sharon and touching her shoulder.

"I'm not gonna lie," Sam commented, "This is gonna hurt. If Wanda had perfect control of her powers, we could use her to dull your pain, but as it is, she could hurt you more than help you with them. Are you ready?"

Sharon took a deep breath – she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately – and nodded. "Just take them out."

She didn't remember everything that happened after that. She recalled excruciating pain, like her hands were being torn apart, her screaming for some seconds. The pinched look of sympathy on Steve's face, like he was the one in pain, and Wanda leaving the room to check on something. A feeling of lightness as she lost consciousness for a moment, and then a true feeling of lightness when someone – probably Steve, from the easy way she was being carried – scooped her up gently and left the facility. First frigid, then hot air on her face. Someone caressing her cheek and holding her hand like it was a feather.

When she woke up, she felt like crap. Her eyes hurt – everything hurt, actually – and she was in some sort of medical facility. Her bed was big enough for two adults to sleep in, and it was softer than any hospital bed she'd ever been in. "Miss Carter," a voice said. She followed the voice to a young woman who was entering the room through an automatic door. A nurse, to be more precise. "We're glad you're awake."

There were about a million questions Sharon wanted to ask, and her practical side jumped at the opportunity to know the answer to the most important one. "Where the hell am I?"

The young woman smiled. "Well, in Wakanda, of course."

I felt bad about the torture Sharon went through, but it was necessary to the story, unfortunately. So, what do you think?

See you next chapter! ^^