Chapter 13


There was no warmth blanketing the dimly lit room, Madame HYDRA rigidly leaned her slender frame against the wooden door with no flush of contentment tinged on her paled and cut-stone cheekbones. She crossed her leather heeled boots ankle to ankle as she stood motionless and patient.

Her long green eyes draped over her trim shoulders as she shot a forward and intense glower at the dark figure sitting at the table across from her view-Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker.

His chiseled features veiled by shadow as he settled a glass of red wine on the flawless mahogany. He gave her total disregard, rejection. It unnerved her. Tensing out a breath, Madame HYDRA stiffened her lips into a grimace of displeasure she kept her cold eyes trained on him and began her report.

"I have done research on the files you have been keeping hidden from my eyes, but I hold not regression towards your methods when it comes to getting satisfied results." she digressed with an unsavory voice. "Little girls that are alone in this world become the most ambitious and most aggressive ...That child holds our redemption for failing HYDRA. She will live, die and live again. There will be no exceptions of having a good life. Her life has already been coded since the moment her worthless mother conceived."

Strucker had killed so many people. Stories had been written in his victim's blood which he smeared on the crumbling walls. His methods of interrogated were brutal-broken necks, crashed ribs and slit throats. Even though he dressed formal and elegant in her presence, she sensed his nefarious and carnal nature; he wasn't afraid to show it to his captives. He revealed no sentiment.

Their eyes met, a hard an unforgiving steel-gray that seemed to penetrate through her layers. "You realize what is necessary to do now my dear," he said twisting his lips into a smug grin. "Everything must entwine. We can have no more loose threads. As a former benefactor of the Schutzstaffel I have watched orphaned children become monsters overnight. All it takes is simple bargain for their freedom and they obey have command that pours out from your mouth." he addressed coldly, squeezed his leather fingers into a tight gloved fist. "They are primitive creatures with young minds...Children sometimes become the most deadly weapons when used with the right motivation. I have had quite a few encounters with reckless children who became witnesses of their own parents' murders when HYDRA had to level a few towns in order to recreate our imperium. After all it was I you gave you a new life in the high ranks as our newest lieutenant."

"How could I forget your compassion towards my life, Herr Strucker." Madame HYDRA returned through clenched teeth, and then clicked her spiked heels fervently towards the table, and then flipped opened the front of brown file with fluttered of stained paper.

"When Zola replicated the formula that was supposed to have been extracted from Captain America's veins to create to evolution of super-soldiers, it meant failure. We were unable to retrain the American soldier in our prisons, but we tested the new compound that our doctor created by the stolen notes and samples that our agents collected back in Brooklyn. One the months passed, all those men became mutated and destroyed-abominations from muscle growth that tore their bodies apart. The others disagreed with the serum and their weak immune systems rejected the poison and killed them. I was there watching their internal organs burst -heart attacks, strokes suffocation." she paused, and cuffed her hands behind her back, drawing in her boots close together.

"With our failures HYDRA we were able to reach success when the Soviets gave us funding for the experiments. In result with our alliance to Russia, they gave us a gift -You remember...The young American soldier who followed Captain America around. The one asset we both shared when his mutilated body was dragged out the icy ravine. Zola operated on him, sawed off the marred bones of his left arm and injected with the new batch of serum. He was the first of many to become perfected in the eyes of our family, but he wasn't worthy to carry on the mantle of HYDRA, no, only a blood heir could have that rite to control the ideals left by our deceased leader." she growled vehemently up her throat.

Dragging her long nails against the wood, she had resumed in her conversation with arrogant and ruthless former Nazi trapped in her daunting gaze of molten green. "We need to talk about the heir of our leader and the extraction of her diseased and imperfect blood that carries the essence of her mother. We have already begun the cleansing procedures, blood draining and injections, but she will have her mind erased within the next few days before we ship her off to the old ruins of Castle Zemo."

There was a piece of paper inserted with a small note in German clipped over a photograph of a young Russian had gentle brown eyes filled with security and warmth; long and curly golden hair that cascaded over her shoulder, and her face was pale with dark blemishes of abuse smudged over her cheeks. She had been condemned to live in the shadows, and raise her children under the run. Russian was only half of her existence; her father was born in Moscow, but her mother Gisela was born in a darkness of Germany-an orphaned street girl raised in the void of hatred and poverty. She had been marked as a slave when the men in black coats scarred her left arm with a forbidden symbol that etched red over the ivory was branded her as a prize to the senseless and inhuman leader of a terrorist organization called HYDRA. The equalizer of human weakness and order.

Corrupted to serve her master, the young girl became his object of desire. Gisela obeyed every command he spoke, and didn't flinch when his black leather gloved hands caressed over her scarred arms. It was enslavement, and she had become bounded to his words and orders. After months of being locked in an isolated chamber, with little light to remind her that she wasn't a captive in hell; Gisela had conceived an heir that shared his bloodline and altered DNA strands that constructed merciless power.

After the leader was murdered by an American soldier who was stronger and America saved the world from leveled desolation; she escaped on the train with liberated and wounded Russian soldiers, erased her identity, and married a farmer before she gave birth to her baby girl -Alanta.

"Do you remember the night we recovered what rightfully belong to us?" Madame HYDRA issued, coldly, pulling out a torn photography of a small infant. "When we heard of the news of Gisela giving birth to a healthy daughter...We weren't so merciful and instead leaving a parting gift during that special time, we gave her something else to make her remember who pulled the strings..."

It had been a cold, unforgiving and harsh December night; a masked assassin clothed in black invaded their home. He was silent with his attack, his methods elusive, and his eyes, a ghostly blue without emotion or humanity. He was a programmed drone for HYDRA, a face of terror and darkness, and a symbol of death. It was a terrifying moment, Gisela had felt like a little rabbit ensnared in the intense gaze of a hungry wolf.

He never let her breathe when as held her three-month baby girl in her arms, shielding her tiny form from a metal hand reaching to grab the wailing baby. She knew he was ordered by the last remaining superiors of HYDRA, and his objective was her daughter. The assassin wrapped his metal hand around her throat, squeezing until her youthful features changed into a hue of faint purple. She tried to fight, clawing at his against with her free hand; but he managed to cut off her airways, and twist the bones into her neck. With a violent crack; he fractured and dislocated the bones, and listened to her wheeze out fading breaths.

"Leave my daughter alone." Gislea pleaded, struggling to muster out a few words as she looked into his icy blue eyes obscured by disheveled brown hair. His wore the semblance of a young man; his menacing face was chiseled and shrouded with confusion. She choked out another breath. "Her life is precious and doesn't belong to HYDRA. She deserves freedom...Freedom."

"Freedom?" he questioned, unsure of the word as it ragged up his strained throat. His pale blue eyes suddenly became distant, and his fingers unclasped from her bruised neck.

He released his choke hold, and watched her eyes roll back into their sockets. She died before her body impacted the floor; the baby slipped out from the laden arm, but he scooped up the distressed child, and looked down at the life withering in his arms. He blinked, and just stared at the baby. His lips hinged shut, and his dulled blue eyes scanned the the doors opened and his superior marched over hardwood, and he automatically handed the baby into the man's extended arms, gently, and then returned intrepidly back into the shadows.

Sneering as the grim memory dissolved in her mind, Madame HYDRA swiped a glass wine, and delicately took a sip. "The Winter Soldier has proven to us many times that his loyalty lies within the heart of the HYDRA. He isn't weak or defective like the others who had failed to reach our goals of reformation." She halted in her words. It brought her to a pause. Pause. A moment of thoughtless control of emotion. A falter in her system. A hint of teetering closer to the edge. "Our asset has shown soon the breakage of his emotional barriers with the child. She feels security with him...I know that they both share a connection. She has disrupted Soldier's tolerance for human weakness."

"Weakness is necessary when evolving humanity to new order." Stucker's hoarse German accent encroached around her. The Baron rose from his seat, and hauntingly advanced closer to her. His face was still hidden, but a gleam of his glass monoclonal reflected against the flickers of firelight. He spoke once more to her, with a hint of spite ragging from his throat. "The child must not be considered as an asset to us, but a blood miracle."

Madame HYDRA glared at him, jaw tensing. She couldn't contain her bottled up disgust. "What is your command?" She asked." Do we remove the child from this place and allow her to avoid the final stages of her rebirth or do we send her to Castle Zemo where she will be trained as a young operative recruit?" She growled and leveling her inscrutable glower at him. "What is your decision?" she snapped back.

"Assimilation." he replied calmly, grinning amusingly at her. "The girl must learn obedience before training. We need to wipe her and erase the images of her family. That is the only way she can fully respond to our commands." He shuffled his feet, and placed his gloved hand atop of the folder. "It is a method of discipline, but once we have removed her existence and her willpower has been broken, then she will be completely ours to control."

Madame HYDRA returned with a curt of nod, as she turned to leave. She glanced over her shoulder and regally issued out her response, "As you command, Herr Stucker."


A dark line of maroon trickled over his full lips. He felt every slap against his rugged and ashen skin. Every slash of hardened rage penetrate through his bones. It was a method of torture, pure and effective, and it was brutal and unrelenting.

His body jostled against the pounding impact of gloved hands embedding into his jaw. He felt lost in the weaves of hatred. His murky vision flared hot crimson underneath his tensed eyelids; trying to back while blood smeared over his lips and contrasting the ivory hue of his blemished skin; trickling aimlessly down his throat until the trail reached the graven muscles of his heaving chest. A myriad of straggly patterns lanced over his crescent scars, burning the fading marred wounds with sickening warmth.

His lungs collapsed as jolts of thrones of tantalizing pain spread in his system like live wire. It felt like the veins underneath his tightening knuckles melted through the skin. He swallowed and trembled against the hard chair, the coldness of steel from a gun caressed over his pulsing temple, brushing the matted strands of his brown hair back as he caught the familiar and encroaching whiff of lead.


Long Island USA, December 1991

Snow cascaded over the ice slick streets. The distance glow of sunlight reflected over the vacant windows. It had become unexpected and unforgiving white out. Inside a black Mercedes sedan, Howard Stark gripped the steer wheel firmly, his dark brown eyes focused on the road ahead. His skin grew clammy underneath his leather gloves as the car drove pass heaps of snow barricading the sidewalks. Given the proper traction on the tires, he easily broke through the white curtain of heavy flakes.

He was barely conversing with his wife sitting in the passenger seat, telling him about the awards their son Tony received, but he was a captive of the dark secrets lodged in his heart. He felt the harrowing sense of danger crawling in the marrow of his bones. Inside the trunk was a prototype instrument he designed for one single purpose. It was tracking beckon, a device to found someone lost and buried in the frozen wasteland of subzero temperatures. His life's work was all configured into the small piece, because he made a promise to a friend. He intended to keep that promise.

He was barely focused, smiling at her words, and pretending to listen. The windshield wipers had grown to become a distraction, but his wife's voice lulled him to take his eyes off the road for a second when she interrupted his concentration.

"Howard, darling, are you even listening to a single word I am telling you?"

He nodded, curtly, "I am very proud of Tony." he answered, simply with a faint smile. "It won't be long until he's running the show..."

"Howard honey is everything alright?" she asked, concern gleamed in her eyes. The spotlight turned red. The brakes screeched over the layer of snow. It as an impasse, tension was growing thick in the air between them. "Darling what is it?"

Howard opened his mouth to answer her, his dark eyes focused ahead and fingers clutched the steering well. He took a moment to reconsider his choice of words, but he knew that wasn't much time to give her the full explanation... He sighed, "I have been working on a new project. Classified. It will ensure a better future for Tony. There is nothing more I want for him than that, Maria." He swallowed down hard, "I made a blueprint of an instrument to help our friends in the shadows find hope again, but as long as this idea must be kept hidden I fear that HYDRA will strike at us."

Maria furrowed her eyebrows, "HYDRA is dead, Howard. Agent Carter told me that the former members no longer exist. We raked everything from the marked locations. There was nothing left for us to recover."

"That is what scares me, Maria." He countered, feeling the blood flow in his fingers stop against the brush of coldness. "This instrument in the wrong hands could destroy humanity if it becomes used in the wrong hands. We need to keep everything underground and leave Tony in the dark about my mistakes."

He tore his eyes from the stoplight vigil and frowned as he met her gaze. "I'm sending you and our son away from Long Island until I know that everything is secure-"

"Howard?"

Without a second, Howard felt his heart thud to a complete stop against his chest. He hitched out a breath, and feel into a trance as a tall, dark and hooded figure emerged from the curtains of fleck white. It was phantasm of winter. Howard couldn't tell if it was a man stalking methodically closer to the vehicle's range. The man stopped only a few feet away from the held a rocket launcher, angling the muzzle with the car-with no time to brace for the bullet, Howard interlocked his fingers with Maria's dainty hand, and said his silent prayers.

The weapon sounded off with a loud 'CHOOM' and the car exploded into roaring flames. Metal and bone melted as screams erupted from the violent inferno. The ghost stood there, watching the destruction consume everything in his obscured pale blue eyes. He didn't budge a muscle, it was almost like he had become frozen and immunized to watching shards of glass rain over the pavement and the scent of charred flesh permeated the air. His long leather coat billowed in the snow squalls, and he moved slowly to his target. His wolfish glower revealed to sentiment to the victims encased with flames.

For a long moment of listening to the screeching metal framework of the vehicle combustion; he maneuvered to the back, and rammed a gloved fist into the black fogged glass. Metal fingers coiled with the graphite a pensive expression, he looked at the damage he pale blue eyes vacant without emotion, dark strands of hair twirled against his forehead, as he recoiled his hand aback, and lifted the prize of his master out of the blaze.

His eyes narrowed slightly, as he breathed against the hard muzzle styled mask covering the lower half of his face. He stared, just stared at the skeletons of Howard and Maria Stark. He flesh hand tried to reach for the bodies, he wanted to touch the molten flesh because he sensed that he knew the driver, but then he received his orders to return to his master.

Turning around, his combat boots crunched over the glass, and he stuffed the tube case inside his coat, and vanished into the snowfall.

He never looked back.