Black Sheep (1/4)

(The Winter Soldier & Avengers, Rated M)

"It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!"

- JK Rowling

DISCLAIMER: dark themes

There were no two ways about it. Irene was a Nazi, a HYDRA, and an utterly irredeemable human being.

She had been born in the med bay of the Swiss HYDRA facility, to the administrator, Hans Hoffman, and his wife. From the moment she was old enough to stand the double-armed salute was drilled into her, and as soon as she was old enough to be truly useful, the age most kids would be learning to ride a bike or some shit like that, she was taught three things: how to hold herself, how to hold a tea-tray, and how to hold a gun.

The first was to ensure she passed as intelligent, as useful, to the big American names that came and went through their quaint little mountain bunker with its picturesque ground-to-air missiles. She learned to speak German and Romansch fluently, along with some halting Russian coupled with French and English civilities, as well as how to complete sums in her head and read swiftly, without moving her lips in an unseemly manner. Her mother taught her anything a good, Aryan wife should need to know, except for matters of the bedroom, and her father made sure she knew the workings of the facility like the back of her hand. By the time she was sixteen, she was the perfect submissive, devout little blonde woman, invaluable but invisible, just as her superiors wanted her to be.

Invaluable, of course, because of the second of her three pillars of education- that of complete servitude to the good soldiers. Irene was their dogsbody, did everything for them from shining their shoes to greasing their guns, should they ask for it. She made sure Pierce and his friends were always supplied with endless amounts of tea and "Knabberei", nibbles as her mother called them, offered with a close-lipped smile before retreating back to the shadows. She was everything they needed her to be, until one might think to lay a hand on her. That's when the last pillar- the gun- came in useful, and the soldiers learned that Irene was not available. She was forbidden, pure, and even if she missed with her tiny revolver then Hans would find them, a double-barrel resting in the crook of his arm.

Irene could shoot with respectable, although not flawless, accuracy; she had never taken a life, and admired the valour of those that had. She was too weak to do so, she knew it in her heart. Besides, it was not her duty to in the first place.

For much of her life thus far, Irene was so sheltered that she never had reason to believe that HYDRA's Nazarene views were wrong. Her world may have been rhythmical, repetitive and filled with drudgery, but she was treated well- better, she knew, than a woman deserved, because of her father's soft spot for his only child. A girl shouldn't know how to clean a gun, or which spot to kick the computer system in to make it work. Irene did, although she knew the other men were not to be told about it. It ruined the image, and she didn't want them to think badly of her, the big brave soldiers with their strapping gait and lazy, crass conversation.

Although always the perfect picture of servitude, she entered her teen years as a happy, relatively carefree girl with a quick mind and the perfect Slavic complexion. The latter did not go unnoticed, especially when coupled with the soft, supple flesh that grew on her previously narrow figure, filling it out into a form that kept the visiting soldiers awake at night. Puberty was a turning point for Irene; not only was she given a little more responsibility and respect, being referred to as Fraulein Hoffmann by the men, but once her mother explained that the blood pouring down her legs once a month was completely natural, she began to wish that her father was not so strict about how she spent her evenings.

But no amount of forced celibacy could stop a young girl in a building filled with testosterone and handsome young men who would emerge, naked and glistening, from the shower and expect her to bring fresh towels to them. She kept a list, the names of her favourites, and stared at it every night with hungry eyes and shallow breaths, savouring the peculiar sensation in the pit of her body that it gave her and shivering with pleasure as she imagined the men pressing against her, into her. She would wake up the next morning feeling ashamed of herself, keep her eyes as ever downcast as she worked. Nothing ever came of those blood-pumping nights alone.

The year she turned sixteen, a soldier unlike the others was brought to stay. Irene knew he would be unusual because he was treated as a singular unit rather than part of a larger machine, as well as that his coming was foreshadowed by the arrival of a lot of large, intimidating machines and scientific equipment. The men in white lab coats that accompanied them would tell her very little, however many favours she did them. Pierce arrived a day before him too. She liked Alexander, with his twinkling eyes and a propensity towards her caused by him having a daughter himself. The other American men gave off impressions of danger, but like with her father she felt safe around Pierce. Protected.

"Fraulein Irene?"

She placed the files on a nearby surface and saluted respectfully. "Hello, Mr Pierce," she said respectfully, and he chuckled.

"How many times, my darling, must I tell you to use my first name?"

She used the same old response her mother had told her to. "At least once more, Herr Pierce," she replied, voice laden with the curling Swiss accent.

"Irene, I need you to do me a favour. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, good. First, I need to introduce you to our special guest," he explained, holding out his arm to take her waist. "Come on, we're on a schedule."

She knew better than to dawdle, and walked with hurried steps with him to the labs.

"I expect you're wondering who he is," Pierce said lightly, and she nodded.

"I must admit a small, sir."

"A little," he corrected her with a paternal smile. "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll take well to a pretty little thing like you. We've just been having a few… teething problems with him, is all, and we're seeking alternative solutions to our usual fallback. It's so much easier to break soldiers once and for all, I find."

Irene was so used to bathos like this she didn't even bat an eyelid. "Yes, sir."

"Here we are." They walked into the lab, his arm still tight on her waist. "Irene, I'd like you to meet… a friend of mine."

There was a shirtless man with his back to her, being swarmed by scientists, but he turned at the sound of Pierce's voice to look at them. He was tall but not exceedingly so, well-muscled and with a gleaming silver arm, plus dark, overgrown hair a little clumped by sweat. His expression was still but his eyes were restless, calculating and analysing the situation as only the very best soldier could.

"What is this?" he asked Pierce, after giving her a cursory glance.

"All in good time. Step away from him," Pierce added, "give us some space." The scientists left in a swarm of white, leaving Irene with Pierce, the new soldier and Bianov, one of her favourite regulars. The latter was tall and in possession of a well-chiselled jawline, and had always brought her flowers from outside the base, flowers from places Irene would never see. She had immortalised them by pressing them between the pages of heavy books, and kept them in the same secret place as her list. He winked at her, one hand hovering above the handgun strapped to his muscular thigh, making her blush.

Pierce backed away from Irene, leaving just her and the nameless soldier on that side of the room. "Do you like her?" he asked, and the nameless narrowed his eyes a little. "Answer me."

"I… don't know," he said quietly. "Do you want her dead?"

"No!" Pierce said impatiently, "why would I want that? What a waste of such a pretty little thing."

There was something in his voice, something slimy, that despite not fully understanding what he was saying made her shiver. And not in a good way. She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she had worn a cardigan, and shrunk under the men's gaze.

"Mission report," Pierce ordered, "specifically, tell me what happened with the eyewitness."

The nameless' eyes widened a little. "I… I let her go," he said, almost too quietly to be heard.

"Speak up, soldier."

"I let her go," he repeated, louder this time.

"Why?"

"She didn't look dangerous."

"What did she look like?"

"Blonde. Like her," the nameless said in a low voice.

Pierce nodded, with pursed lips. "Rape her," he said calmly.

Irene didn't understand the word, but the one to whom it was directed definitely did- it threw him, he pursed his lips in panic. Irene knew the feeling; for some reason, her mouth was dry as desert. He glanced between her and Pierce, then shook his head just a fraction of an inch.

"Fuck the girl," Pierce said, "that is an order, soldier. Rape her or Bianov will happily do it, and you will watch."

"She's not done anything," the nameless protested, "she's just a civilian-"

With four large strides, Pierce crossed the room and smacked the soldier round the cheek with the back of his hand. "Do it!"

There was a war going on behind his eyes, she saw; he stepped towards her, slowly and with muscles tense, and extended his normal hand hesitantly, as though he didn't know where to put it. Irene's heart was thudding in her chest, but there must have been metal in her shoes and magnets in the floor because she appeared to be glued into her position. Her eyes met his, and each saw wild, animalistic panic reflected in the other.

The soldier's hand fell to his side. "No," he said quietly, "I won't do it."

"You won't follow orders because some dumb pretty bitch batted her eyelashes at you," Bianov said contemptuously, but was silenced with a look from Pierce.

"We need you completely compliant," he said levelly, "you have one final chance."

The nameless didn't once look away from Irene, teeth gritted as he shook his head. It looked as though the simple refusal to obey was costing him every ounce of energy he had, and yet he was still adamant about not doing whatever the hell rape was. It was a nasty-sounding word, but all of English sounded like that to Irene.

Pierce sighed at the inconvenience. "Wiping it is, then," he said. "Do you have any idea how much that costs? Fall back, soldier."

The nameless did as he was told, stepping backwards into his original position a few metres from Irene. As he did, Bianov stepped forward, once-kind eyes now almost malicious as they swept her body up and down.

"Herr Pierce," Irene managed to choke out, "what is happening?"

"I would be quiet if I were you, my darling. Officer Bianov doesn't like it when they talk."

"You don't have to do this," the nameless protested as he stood as immobile as she did, "I won't do it again, I'll kill every person who lays an eye on me if you just-"

"No," said Pierce, "you need to learn. I want your last memory before we wipe you to be of this girl, suffering, because of your insubordinance." He made his way towards the door. "I have no desire to see this, officer. I'll send some men in to guard the asset until you're finished."

"Yes, sir," Bianov said, moistening his lips as he pulled his belt from his trousers in one smooth motion. Behind him, the nameless watched with silent, begging eyes; I'm sorry, they seemed to say, oh god, I'm so sorry.

Without words to confuse her, Irene finally began to understand what was happening and backed away, only to feel the cold wall pressed into her back. "Please," she begged, "bitte, mein Herr. S'il vous plait, per plaschair, bitte, bitte!"

One hand pressed itself against her mouth, silencing her begging as the other pinned her arms above her head. As hot tears spilled down her cheeks, she watched over Bianov's shoulder as the nameless lunged towards them, only to fall to the floor as the butt of another soldier's gun cracked into the back of his head. They dragged him away and left Bianov to it, and after a couple of minutes his hand dropped from her mouth and he laughed at her screams.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to hurt.

A/N written because I had been mainly doing lighthearted stuff and wanted to see how dark I could get. I had also read a lot of ex-hydra assassin stories (which are great, don't get me wrong) where the character has gone through traumatic events and turned good and that's all in their past and backstory, and figured I might as well have a go at not only writing it as it happens but also in the context of a very normal, civilian girl.

NEXT: "she wasn't a person; she was a tool. She was a thing."