Disclaimer: I don't own Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Agents of SHIELD, etc. I own Jamie.

Chapter 15
Blast From The Past

Jamie wasn't exactly sure where they were going, but the second her eyes landed on the layout of the buildings and the fenced in area, she could tell it was military related. After all, it was instinct for her to recognize it after having grown up a military brat, as well as having spent years in the military herself.

They parked the blue stolen truck in front of the fence and got out, looking around the area for anything. The compound was overgrown and deserted. Nobody was around but them, so Jamie didn't quite understand how they had gotten led there. She supposed not everything appeared as it seemed.

The three were prepared for anything though. Steve had his SHIELD. Natasha had her gun. Jamie had her backpack with everything she had originally had. She was just hoping they wouldn't need it.

"This is it," Steve muttered, eyes a million miles away.

Jamie didn't exactly get what he meant by that, but she didn't say anything. He obviously had been there before. She didn't know when that could've been though. The place looked as if it had been abandoned for at least twenty years. Unless….Unless he had been here back in his own time.

"The file came from these coordinates," Tasha said.

"So did I," Steve added, eyes caught on something to their right.

Wait, that means...It was then that Jamie's eyes caught sight of what the sign on the fence said.

"CAMP LEHIGH. U.S. ARMY RESTRICTED AREA."

"Holy shit," Jamie muttered under her breath. She shifted her eyes to Steve quickly,

"Come on," Steve sighed, breaking open the chain so they could go in. "We've got a lot of ground to cover."

Jamie followed behind Steve, who was following Natasha. She had her phone out looking for the signal. Jamie pulled out her gun just in case they ran into some trouble. It really didn't seem like anybody was there though, so she doubted she would use it. They couldn't really afford to let their guards down.

"This camp is where I was trained," Steve said.

"Didn't look like this in the comics," Jamie chuckled.

"Change much?" Nat asked honestly

"A little," he answered.

The sad tone of his voice caught her attention. Her blue eyes caught his darkening form, the sun going down leaving them in blue dusk. It was obvious that the decay of the camp was hitting Steve harder than he was really letting on. He wasn't really showing too much hurt to begin with, but Jamie knew him well enough to know that seeing this place, a place that helped shape him into the man he was today, in such a state was a direct blow to the chest.

Jamie walked up to him, gently placing a hand on his arm. "You okay?" She asked calmly.

"Well, this is a dead end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio," Nat said. She put her phone in her pocket, disappointingly looking around at the compound overgrown from years of unkeep. "Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."

Steve turned to look at Natasha as she went on explaining, but it didn't seem her words were registering in his head. Instead, his eyes shifted and stuck to a building off in the distance behind her.

"What is it?" Tasha asked.

Steve started to walk off towards the building, the two women in tow. "Any regulations forbids storing munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks," he explained. "This building is in the wrong place."

They came up to the door, looking it up and down. "So I take it it wasn't here when you were last here?" Jamie asked.

"Nope," Steve answered. He raised his shield and brought it back, punching the lock with an incredibly strong force.

The three entered the building and headed down the stairs into what looked to be an office. Natasha found the light switch on the wall and flipped it. There was clicking from the lights overhead as they flickered on.

"I'm surprised this place still has power," Jamie muttered. "You'd think they would've shut the power off since nobody's around. That's a little weird, right?"

"Seems that way to me," Steve said.

"This is SHIELD," Nat thought out loud.

They started to make their way down the aisle of desks towards the other side of the room where the large eagle SHIELD symbol was on the wall.

"Maybe where it started," Steve thought.

Jamie walked up to the SHIELD crest, running her hand over the bottom letters. It was strange to think of SHIELD as something new and just starting out. She knew the SSR was organized before SHIELD, but it still felt as if SHIELD was one of those things that was always there, even though she had never heard of it before they became interested in her because of what Cerberus did. SHIELD was just such a big part of her life now that she just couldn't think of a time without being with them, or bugged by them.

"Jamie," Nat called to her.

Jamie's head snapped to the side. Steve and her were entering in another room, most likely where they had kept files and references back when the place had been active. The back room seemed just as dusty and deserted as the rest of the compound. There were rows and rows of empty, dusk filled bookshelves and not much else other then three pictures hanging up on the far wall of people Jamie had never seen before.

"And there's Stark's father," Nat pointed out.

"Howard," Steve informed them, just in case neither of them knew.

"I know him," Jamie said, looking that the photo of the man in the photo to the left of Howard. "That's Colonel Phillips."

"Who's the girl?" Natasha questioned.

It seemed like such an innocent question to ask, but it obviously wasn't by the distant stare Steve had. There was no response to her question, which only lead Jamie to look at the photo even more. The brunette woman seemed so familiar. She swore she had seen her before.

And that's when she put it all together. Steve's lack of a response, his distant look, the familiarity.

It was Agent Peggy Carter.

That was the woman Steve was in love with.

And that was worse than finding out Fury had died, and Jamie was ashamed to feel that way. She was ashamed to feel as if it was worse than being hunted by SHIELD, or never getting to see James or his family again because her ex-best friend was hunting them. It was like a hand was grasping her heart and tightening its hold until it was squeezing between the fingertips and turning into mush.

And what was even worse than that was that Jamie couldn't be mad at Steve for still being in love with her. From what she read, Peggy was a fantastic, strong, independent woman. How could Steve not still be hung up over her? Sure, she was much older now, near death for all she knew, but to Steve the time they spent together had only been a couple years ago. It's hard to get over something lost.

Jamie was still a bit hung up on and sore about Collin, so she couldn't blame Steve. When thing end badly, and even out of your control, it's so much harder to accept and let go to move on. Steve had really liked her, and she had been important to him. You can't simply forget that and it would've been unreasonable for her to think otherwise.

Jamie really liked Steve, yes, she could now admit that to herself, and perhaps Taylor and Natasha. Yes, if it weren't against regulation and if Steve even had a slight chance of liking her back, Jamie would have liked nothing more than to start a relationship with him (and/or jump his bones but that was jumping the gun just a tad bit). But how could she even approach something like that if Steve was still torn up about Agent Carter?

"Did I say something?" Nat whispered to her seeing Steve's mood shift. Steve had just walked away, down the corridor between the last row of bookshelves and the ones against the wall.

Jamie just mouthed, "Later," to her to insist on the topic being dropped. If Steve didn't want to talk about it, then she wasn't going to rip open old wounds. She'd tell Nat later when they were alone, but until then, Peggy Carter was a topic shelved for another time.

Steve stopped halfway down. He was just checking out one particular section of the shelving unit. "If you're already working in a secret office..." He placed his hand in the small space between the two shelves and pulled, sliding a while unif about two feet to the left where it otherwise shouldn't have been able to move. He continued until it was completely open, leaving a corridor to an elevator. "...why do you need to hide the elevator?"

"This place is like a fun house….but creepier," Jamie muttered walking down to the very old elevator.

Nat instantly went to the control panel. She held up her phone and using a program on it, managed to find the combinations.

"I have no idea how people come up with that technology….or how it even works," Jamie stated, stepping inside once it opened. "Maybe I'll just leave all that thinking to Fitz…" Her words went completely unheard as Steve and Natasha stepped in after her, pressing the down button. The elevator scratched before descending. Jamie's stomach dropped, forcing her to steady herself against the wall. "Have I ever mentioned that I hate elevators?"

Steve smirked and huffed. "Me too," he stated.

"For different reasons…." Jamie pointed out.

The elevator gave a tiny ding once they finally made it all the way down as the doors opened. The room just before them was completely black. They couldn't see anything whatsoever. It wasn't until they started to make their way in that they could just start to make out monitors and buttons on the other side of the room. Halfway to the control station, the lights everywhere automatically turned on, illuminating their surroundings.

"This can't be the data point," Nat stated. "This technology is ancient."
Yeah, and I probably still wouldn't know how to work any of it, Jamie thought, putting her gun away seeing as they were the only ones there.

Natasha stepped forward, eyes finding a USB port installed into the machines. He held up the flash drive, debating with herself whether to plug it in or not. After all, once it was plugged in, Jamie wasn't sure if they were lead STRIKE straight to them once more, or if the technology was so old it couldn't possibly do it.
The second she plugged it in, however, everything around them seemed to spring back to life. Jamie didn;t know how that could possibly happen. Where was the logic in a flash driving brings all that old tech back to life?

The main computer in the center of the control station was no exception. The screen was still black, but little green letters popped up, and the speakers said in a very robotic voice. "Initiate System?"

Nat stepped forward once more, fingers grazing the dusty keyboard as she muttered what she typed, "Y-E-S spells yes." The computer made a whirring noise and Jamie could just see Nat smirking in the reflection of the monitor. "Shall we play a game?" She said in an odd voice. She chuckled, turning back to look at Steve. "It's from a movie that was really pop…"

"I know, I saw it," Steve interrupted.

"You're welcome," Jamie muttered.

The computer screen flickered with little green specks, and Jamie thought she was going crazy, but it looked like it was forming a weird looking face. The speakers once against made noise, this time much more unsettling words. "Rogers, Steven. Born 1918."

How the hell does it know this? Jamie asked herself, not noticing the camera on top of the monitor moving to her. "Roe, Jameson Anne. Born 1988." Finally, the camera went to Nat and said, "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984."

"It's some kind of recording," Nat thought out loud.

"I am not a recording, Fraulein," it said. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." The monitor to their right showed a picture of a man Jamie didn't know.

"You know this thing?" Nat asked.

Steve looked questioningly at the monitor, shifting around on his feet until he found himself walking behind the monitor, but he went on. "Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years."

"First correction, I am Swiss. 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 databanks. You are standing in my brain."

Ew, definitely could've worded that better, Jamie thought. This is just too unbelievable.

"How did you get here?" Steve asked, standing in front of the monitor once more, to the left of both Nat and Jamie.

"Invited."

"It was Operation Paperclip. After World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value," Nat pipped up.

I thought he was Swiss, Jamie thought, a bit off topic.

"They thought i could help their cause. I also helped my own."

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve argued.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." The monitor showed the HYDRA emblem of the Kraken head (which Jamie never quite understood, sing a Hydra was speculated as looking nothing like a kraken).

"Prove it," Steve dared.

"Accessing archive." The monitor to their left showed a German man in uniform, then what she suspected were hydra members from WWII. "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom." American Soldiers making shore. "What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist." Now the Red Skull was on the screen. There were images of book and art burnings, Steve taking prisoners in his old uniform.

"The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. 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." Now there was an image of a sniper.

"That's impossible," Nat said. "SHIELD would have stopped you."

An article on Howard and Maria Stark, Tony's parents came up telling about the car accident that killed them. "Accidents will happen." Then Fury's deceased SHIELD file came up. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain it security."

Bullshit, when people are desperate, they turn to people and powers they don't understand and that always leads to horrible outcomes, Jamie thought.

"Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain."

Jamie looked over to Steve, who's jaw was clenched so tightly she thought he would break his teeth. His brow was furrowed together and his nostrils flared. His face, all at once, was pale at the news being broken to them, and his ears were red from his frustration and anger towards the man, or computer, whatever it was.

"Your death amounts to the same as your life. A zero sum."

Steve couldn't take it anymore. With his bare fist, he threw a punch that shattered the largest, main screen before them where the "face" was located. Jamie couldn't blame him. She would've been angry too if she were him. Not only did he just find out that HYDRA, the group he died to stop, was still around, he was being antagonized by one of the very people he had take into custody so many years ago.

"Steve, that's not going to do anything to help us," Jamie said, pulling his hand back down to try and comfort and calm him.

"As I was saying..." Arnim said, coming up on the right screen.

He didn't seem to calm whatsoever. "What on this drive?" Steve demanded.

"Project Insight requires insight. So, I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm?" Nat pressed. "What does it do?"
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

Jamie spun around at the sound of the mechanical doors of the elevator closing. Steve reacted quickly. He threw his shield in a desperate attempt to wedge it into the door to prevent it from closing. It only bounced off, to a pillar, which sent it right back to Steve.

"Guys, we got a bogey," Nat informed them. Jamie's head snapped to her now Nat was getting all this info off her phone. "Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds, tops."

"Who fired it?" Steve asked.

"SHIELD," Nat answered.

"Of course they did," Jamie grumbled. She ran over to the door and placed her hands side by side against it, focusing her energy into her hand to try and see if she could blast it open. However, her efforts seemed futile. Her energy was strong, but not strong enough to break through metal. "I can't get it open," Jamie told them, rushing back to the group.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We are, both of us, out of time."

Nat grabbed the drive from the port as Steve bent down, taking off the grate on the floor. He tossed it across the room and looked up at Jamie, nodding down into the space. She jumped down having been standing just on the other side of it that Steve was. As she did so, he turned to Nat. Steve was just able to grab her and pull her into the hole, him and his shield covering the two of them as the missile made contact with the building.

Jamie, on the other hand, was not under the shield. She was forced to admit her energy around her and up, trying desperately to create enough of a current and flow of the energy to prevent any debris or fire from getting into their tiny cover. It only partially worked. The flow was inconsistent. Jamie would beat herself up over it, but nobody could really blame her for not being able to hold it completely steady as things rained down from above on top her. And it wasn't as strong as it could be because of the amount of blood she had lost because of her wound, which was now reopened from all the movement and energy.

When Jamie could finally open her eyes, all she could see was darkness. There were rocks all around her. Her energy had managed to keep nothing from falling right on her,but everything that hit the field rolled off and built up around her, causing her to be trapped inside. It was almost like being buried alive.

"Steve?" Jamie called out, trying her best to move some rocks above her."Natasha? Can anybody hear me?" She reached up, pushing harder this time but then cried out in pain. Her hands went to her side, feeling the sticky red blood seeping through the layers of fabric. "Fuckin' Brock," Jamie growled. "Steve?" She yelled out again, coughing from the dust.

"Jamie?"

"Steve!" She yelled out after she heard his voice.

There was some shifting above her, and a minute later, a hole appeared and Steve's face and upper body could be seen. He held out a hand for her to take, and she placed her hand on the side that wasn't hurt into his hand, allowing him to pull her out.

"Thanks," she coughed out. "You okay?"

He panted, nodding his head that he was in one piece. "Natasha's unconscious," he said, leading turning to pick the woman up. "We have to go. They'll be looking for us."

"Wouldn't they think we're dead?" Jamie thought, following behind him.

"Would you think we were dead?" he asked.

"...Good point," she muttered. "Wait...do you hear that?" She asked, stopping only briefly. She looked over her shoulder, Steve looking thin the same direction they saw three lights in the distance. "Quinjets," Jamie uttered. "Go!"

These types of chapters are always so hard to write because they're so perfect the way they are. And they're so fluid. I'm just never as happy with them as I wish I was, you know. Anyway, I hope you guys like the chapter though. Oh, and Daredevil season 2 started on Netflix if you didn't know. I'm excited to see what this season brings...and how to incorporate Jamie into some maybe? ;)

Thanks go to the following people for their reviews on the previous chapter:

Queen of Erebor- Lol, yes, they kissed...though I think it's more Jamie kissed him so Nat didn't do it herself.

wintermoon7- Okay, great! I've got some ideas play around now. I'll let everyone know if/when I start writing it. I should really focus on this one right now though.

Goldenfightergirl- Okay, cool! I'll let you know if/when I start writing it.

dleshae- Hey, that's okay. You review every once in a while and that's more than I could hope for! I'm just glad you really like it. But hearing back always makes me want to update for you guys. And I'm really flattered that it's one of your favorite stories! Thank you so much for reading.

Choco-Latte64- I know, I'm so excited to try out the chemistry between pre-serum Steve and Jay. He's just so cute. And I mean Bucky too. It would all just be so different, you know?

Jedi Jelsa777-I probably will end up doing it. I've got some ideas, but not enough to really start forming anything. Plus, I need to focus on this one right now, don't you think? But I def. have stuff rattling around in my brain about it. No! You can't die before Civil War! I love haring from you...You can't die at all! I forbid it!

CJ/OddBall- I have to watch Cap 3 before I decide what side she's on, but so far it's Cap's all the way. Oh, and Jamie can't absorb a bomb. She could only do the tessuract and maybe the other stones because they're similar energy flows. I know, I'm so looking forward to playing around with the different chemistry between everybody in Cap 1, if/when I do it. Gotta focus on this story first.

Jo- Jamie hasn't gone up against the Winter Soldier yet? If you're referring to the guy that she fought on her single mission, i was just some random gang member that found out about the informant. Honest mistake if it is. Steve is stubborn, but Jamie's just as stubborn. It's as much her fault they're not together as it is Steve's.

MidnightPenguin- That's okay! I am better now, thank you! I'm glad you're interested in the idea. I've got ideas rattling around, but right now, I'm going to focus on this story. The Zola idea is a really good one...I didn't think of that! Cool! Thanks!