You barely slept that night; you couldn't stop thinking about what you had found out. You had so many questions, you didn't know who you were anymore, your past now seemed blurry, the trust towards Natasha, Clint, and even Fury was slowly leaving your body. You felt hurt that they were involved in this whole mess that was your identity. They knew much more to what they had led you on, according to those reports you were HYDRA, and a dead 'traitor' was your father. That's all you knew: you were the spawn of a S.H.I.E.L.D traitor.
It was around 8:30AM, and you knew that Natasha and Clint were awake now, and so was everyone in the tower for that matter. Almost reluctantly, you got ready to face Natasha and Clint first, you needed answers and you had run out of patience. You were putting your pants when FRIDAY's voice scared you, making you stumble a little. "Miss L/n, Director Fury has required a last-minute meeting, and it is about to start. He wants you and the rest of the team too."
Great timing, you thought. "Okay. Thanks, FRIDAY," you replied. You were going to get your answers rather sooner that you'd thought, and that thought alone had you shaking a bit.
Once ready, you made your way to the conference room. The whole team was already there, apparently you were the last one to get there. With folder in hand you made your way towards the end of the table. Every meeting Natasha, Clint, and you sat together but you didn't feel like being close to them, you know it was a petty move, but you did not care. Unbeknown to you, your mood had been noticed by everyone and the fact you were distancing yourself from everyone, especially Natasha and Clint, did strike them as weird.
"So, Director, what is this about?" Bruce was the first to speak, sensing the tension in the room, but not commenting about it.
"Someone hacked S.H.I.E.L.D's database last night, and that a person unlocked every rank possible of security we had," said Fury with his usual deep voice tainted with anger.
Crap. You went pale for a second at his words, howdid they know the systemwas hacked? There's no way they could- oh…That's when you remembered, you had helped them create a detector that when someone tried to hack the database, they wouldn't know it and even if they try covering up, S.H.I.E.L.D would know. They would also know from where they hacked.
"Do we know who hacked the database? I'm guessing that you think it was me? Just so you know, it wasn't me. I haven't hacked S.H.I.E.L.D in months," said Tony who sounded offended but amused at the same time, and the grin on his face let that be known.
"We know it wasn't you, Stark. This is a more serious problem, an agent or someone with the access of S.H.I.E.L.D officer did," exclaimed Fury. You were sweating and didn't even know why, it's not like you were an enemy. You were ready to tell Fury everything this morning, but still getting caught hadn't been a worry.
"What? Do you think this HYDRA again?" Steve said sounding annoyed that those people were still roaming around. If he only knew...
"We believe so, Cap." Fury held his voice steady, but the bitterness of the words was there nonetheless.
Funnily enough, he believed it was HYDRA. He was right, if what the reports and dreams were implying was correct.
"It wasn't HYDRA who hacked the database," you said loud enough from where you were sitting so everyone could hear you, laughing humorlessly in the inside by the irony of the words.
"What makes you say that, Agent L/n?" said Fury, looking at you confused, just like everyone else in the room. Every eye was on you, and that made your heart to beat all the faster.
"What do you mean by that?" added Clint.
"I meant that I know HYDRA wasn't the one who hacked S.H.I.E.L.D," you said. You were ready to let it out. "Then who was it, Agent?" Fury's voice interrupted before another word left your mouth. His voice sounded thick with irritation, you were building unnecessary tension, and it was annoying him.
"Me," you exclaimed while standing up, folder in hand.
"What?" "Why?" Everyone had exclaimed loudly their disbelief.
"Before you guys get all freaky and conclude that I had a dark motive just know that I was doing research on our latest target. It led me to some things I couldn't access so I decided to put down the database access system to find out more about his persona and patterns. I needed to know how he moved, how he acted before and after long periods of times, he needs a pattern even if he has hide, so I based my research on that. I didn't get much on that, because he is extremely calculated not to leave trackable patterns.
"What I landed upon was more than I had ask for. I thought that every secret HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D had was outed when Romanoff infiltrated the system before everything went down, but I guess you managed to keep this hidden. convenient, if you ask me, " you said, throwing the folder at the center of the table. Steve grabbed it first, he opened the folder and after a minute of skimming the reports, he looked around then his glare hardened at Fury, then Clint, and Natasha. It was cold, his eyes tried to exclaim his disappointment at them. When he turned from them, he looked at you with more of a soft look. It surprised you, out of anyone he would be the one to be more resentful to know your 'real' identity. He got up, breaking the silence the room had fallen into.
"You're in so much trouble," he said, and slowly, he made his way towards where you were standing. You were quiet at the interchange between Steve and Fury. Silently, you thanked Steve with a look, he was siding with you even before there were sides to take.
Fury took one quick look to the report and without raising his head he said, "Y/n, can we talk in private?" His voice was low, compared to his previous irritated tone, but he spoke loud enough to fill the silence that had fallen once more.
"Why?" your voice came out louder than his, not really bothering at the flinch they all made. "Let them know what you have to say, no more secrets here. Although I believe Natasha and Clint know about it already." The harsh look in your eyes had travelled the message of what the folder might contain.
"Nick, what is it?" Natasha stood up, her eyes avoiding your hard gaze.
"Her past." Two words. That's all it took for Natasha and Clint look at you, worry on their features, and pain behind their eyes. Pain from holding a harsh truth from you. The cracks on Natasha's façade of indifference to your dreams finally broke and revealed their hidden prize—her guilt.
"Y/n-" "We-" Neither of them could find the right words to address you, and even if they had them, you doubt they would register in your brain. Right now, hurt and anger clouded everything.
"Can someone explain to us, the outsiders, what is going on here?" exclaimed Tony from his seat, eyes shifting from one side of the room to the other. You had forgotten that there were more people than Steve, Fury, Clint, Natasha, and you. The rest of the team looked equally confused as Tony, none of them having a clue to why the air had suddenly become so thick.
"They lied to me, about who I am, where I come from, and everything I once thought I believe was my life. All of it has been a lie!" You had raised your voice, thick with dark emotions. Your body felt hot, like some type of fire wanted to escape you and direct itself to those who had hurt you the most. It could be the anger but it felt like it was more than just hatred. Your vision blurry with unshed tears, denying them to see, show how much their lies had damaged you.
"What are you talking about?" Tony asked, still not understanding the matter at hand. "What does that mean?" Tony directed his eyes to Fury, "Why is she saying these things?"
"We lied to protect you, to hide you from the life that was never meant to be. The mission was to bring you in for questioning, but Romanoff and Barton found you unconscious, an explosion had gone off on your sector. You woke up almost a month later, there had been the chance of you having severe brain damage. Thus, memory loss was a risk. We decided that if that were to be the case, you'd need a background. That's when you woke up, with no clue of who you were, we told you what you know to be your life. Doctors told us that there was no possibility of gaining your memories back, so we took you in for you own good." Fury looked tired as he took a seat, his age showing on his face as he told you exactly what you needed to hear, but what you dreaded to know.
It wasn't enough to keep your anger from coming out your mouth like bile. "Were you protecting me or were you protecting yourself and S.H.I.E.L.D?" you were no more than a young woman, injured in a supposed mission to get to you. There was no reason for them to try to protect you. Everything had been a lie, ever since the very beginning of your meeting with the man who had become a father figure. To make it even more painful, two of your best friends had been involved with the plot to keep you in the dark. That's all you could understand from this, or at least that's what your brain wanted to understand.
Neither Natasha or Clint could look at you straight in the eye, the shame in them obvious even to the clueless eyes. They knew everything about you, more than they were telling you. They saw you struggle in your beginning, adapting to 'your' life after as if it had always been like that. You could guess that there were times that they wished they could tell you the truth, but they had been told to never speak a word about it. Nevertheless, their silence stung.
"Both," said Fury, breaking your thoughts from the turmoil that had started to create. The whole room had gone quiet once more, tension thicker than before, "what's her real story then? I mean you've only told us what happened here, but nothing of who she is." While Fury had been talking, Tony had read the report, understanding better the situation at hand. Tony had asked the key question, your true story.
Fury locked eyes with you, his eyes holding memories of things he wished would die with him, "you, Y/n, are the daughter of two of the greatest agents S.H.I.E.L.D have ever trained."
The harsh look you had held throughout it all, had fallen into one of pure shock. Fury continued, ignoring the gapping mouths of the team.
"Agents Lydia Davis and Harrison L/n. They were an unstoppable team, ever since their training days, they had shown great potential for more. Not soon after they had finished their years as trainees, they found themselves working in the field. Feared by those who knew they were on the wrong side of the radar; they were our top agents. This caused many issues for them; they became a major target for bounty hunters. Blacklists had their names on the top. Danger was always going to be there, but they never let that stop them from living their lives as they wished.
"Even knowing that they could get in trouble for being romantically involved, they didn't listen and did as their hearts asked. They fell in love, moved together, got married, and then they had you—Katherine Lean L/n. They retired before their time for you, they wanted you to be kept a secret so before Lydia could show signs of her pregnancy, I helped them locate in a secure safehouse. You were six months old when HYDRA attacked the safehouse, they had helped from the inside. We were late, they had left the house a mess, they had tortured them before they decided to kill them, and you were nowhere to be found. They had taken you, all we could guess was that whoever took you had a choice in your fate. I never stopped looking, only those who were at the house knew about that search, and it died with them. When we finally had you, I couldn't take you back myself, so I sent Romanoff and Barton. You know what happened next, you woke up with no memory of what life had been under Garrett. There was barely anything left, they had been moving warehouses before we got to them. I never meant for you to find out, and I'm sorry that you had to find out this way." He looked at you, his voice dying down with regret in them.
You hadn't noticed you were crying until a sob erupted from you. Things seemed clearer now, it all clicked like missing pieces in a uncomplete puzzle you didn't know you owned. It made sense as to why you called him father, why you were having dreams HYDRA facilities—you had been training to become one of their main agents. Your parentage being their reasoning to your capture.
"That explains every dream I've had since that night," you whispered to yourself, not realizing that the silence in the room made it audible to the team.
"What night, Y/n?" Steve's soothing voice asked you, his arms holding you against his chest as you cried. The amount of security you felt was well received by your broken self, you had never appreciated the man as much as you were in that moment.
"The day we tried to get Barnes, that same night I had dreams that relate to all of this," you said, a bit louder for everyone to hear. You detached yourself from his chest, but his arms still held close enough for you to feel the warmth of his body.
"Dreams? Are you telling us his presence triggered your memories?" The confused voice of Sam Wilson asked, finally having a voice in the mess he hadn't asked to be present for.
"It did. It all started with me seeing them waking him up from his, I guess, capsule. That's the first thing that came to me, and all because he was present for most of my training. He was my trainer in a way, I would train with others, but they made me train with him, I was the only one who did that wasn't enhanced. He trained with others too, but none of them seemed to be as agile.
"Those are like glimpses, but there are more vivid—actual memories. Those are less of me training, but me having conversations with papa—sorry—Garrett or with Bucky. They sometimes would let him be awake for an amount of time to see if he still needed to be wiped, they always had to because his consciousness would wake up, he would mention things from his past at random. They didn't like that because from there he would question things, so they would always 'reset' him. No matter how much they tried to keep those memories at bay, they would always come back in pieces. He told me every time, it confused him, and he confided in me. I guess he trusted me because I practically grew up under his watch. I was a kid, didn't really understood anything until later I guess, because those are rare compared to the ones with Garrett. Those are more frequent, he raised me as his own. He became harsher on me by the time I was old enough to endure more training methods. It explains some scars." The tears had stopped, you had regained composure, and you had told them what you could about your dreams, your memories, your life. Steve had tensed at the mention of his best friend, and you understood. His friend had been in so much pain, physical and mental pain. Unbeknownst to you, it eased his mind that he had have you as a friend while he was absent.
You looked up at Steve, giving him a little smile, trying to demonstrate your gratitude. He looked like he wanted to ask you more about these dreams, all because of his friend, but he held back and with one last slight squeeze of your arms, he let you go. You were mentally exhausted, so you ignored the intense looks from everyone else on your way out of the room. You just wanted to go to bed, even if you had been up for less than two hours, it had been a stressful morning, too many things to process.
You finally knew your story, the real one. No matter how many times it replayed in your mind, how true it was, your brain wanted to grasp this information as a bad dream. Emotions you hadn't shown in front of the team were trying to erupt from you, a mental breakdown seemed to be the only thing your body wanted to do. Your walk to your room seemed to take forever and with every step, you felt ready to crumble and let yourself drown with the pain that came along with knowing who you are. No sooner than you had entered your room, the tears had no mercy and fell freely, drowning you in a sea of emotions you hadn't asked for.
Things were going to be different and they were going to change soon, fuck, they had already changed. The truth of who you were, was out, but you needed more information, you needed to know things that only one person would know. You needed him to tell you what he could remember about you, HYDRA, and more importantly, your relationship with him. There had been some dreams where you would see yourself as a teenager around him, his mere presence making you stumble a little. When training, the slight touch of his hands on you would make you blush, and it would make you lose your concentration. All this affected you, but you never seemed to get a reaction from him, at least not the way you wanted.
There was more to the story, there was more than just looks, there was more to fill in, but you didn't have the pieces that are missing, he did.
You needed to find Bucky.
