Rewritten 2018

Make You Feel My Love ~Book II~

Disclaimer: I do not own The Winter Soldier movie! All rights go to Marvel. All I own is my own characters and their stories.

~Chapter 20~
Fort Meade

Maria let out an annoyed sigh as she continued to crawl through the vents, sweat pouring down her forehead and back. The cramped space was warm already and the heated air going through those vents made things even worse. Since Maria was the smallest out of the four, she was the one that had been sent inside. The others were waiting outside, the truck parked as far away from the building as possible in order to not be seen by guards or security cameras. To be fair, it didn't really matter anymore whether authorities saw them or not as they were already criminals, but old habits die hard.

Besides, it would not be very stealthy to alert the guards.

People were allowed inside of Fort Meade where the museum area was, however they weren't allowed where the storage rooms were. The only way inside without being seen was through the vents.

"This better be worth it," grumbled Maria with a roll of her eyes as she wiped her brow to prevent drops of sweat to enter her eyes.

As she reached the destination of the 'wings', Maria looked down through a grate opening, seeing three guards positioned outside of the storage room, guns resting in their hands. Maria was sure those guards weren't the only ones there but, if she was quiet, she wouldn't give them a cause to leave their current posts.

Apparently, the wings were set up to remain on display as some form of military souvenir. Though it wasn't much of a souvenir if the visitors to the museum couldn't even see them.

Slowly and silently, she removed the grate and placed it inside of the vent. From her jumper's pocket, she grabbed her dagger, seeing the glossy slime from the poison still covering the blade, much to her relief. Sam had helped her cook some up, and if she was lucky she had remembered the correct formula for the one that didn't kill.

She knew, since it was only a small blade compared to her sword, that the poison would be enough for two of the three guards. If she could be quiet while sneaking down behind them, she could take out two with her dagger and the last one with her hands.

Grabbing the edges of the vent-opening, she slowly let herself descend down onto the floor behind them, making absolutely no sound whatsoever as she landed. Once again grabbing her dagger, she quickly sliced two of the guards arms only slightly so that they barely would register it as pain. As the two of them started to fall into unconsciousness, she jumped up onto the third man's shoulders, wrapping her legs around his neck, grabbing his gun in the process and throwing it away from him. As he slowly choked, Maria held onto his head, trying her best to keep her balance.

However, while the two other men were now lying on the floor, the third man was smarter than Maria had anticipated and quickly thrust himself back against the wall, knocking Maria against said wall. As the air was pushed out of her lungs, she loosened her grip on the man's neck unintentionally which gave him the chance to wiggle out of her grip, turning around and grabbing her by the throat. He reached for his walkie talkie to alert other guards, but Maria managed to thrash so much to the point where the guard let go of the walkie talkie, the device clattering to the floor.

The guard, in response to this, tightened his fingers around her throat. As she already had no air in her lungs, black dots started to appear in front of her eyes the moment he did so and she grabbed onto his hands, digging her nails down into them and trying her best to make him let go. It wasn't until she kicked out with her leg against his crotch that he let go, though.

She fell to the floor, coughing and heaving in air back into her lungs. The guard was on the floor, groaning out of pain. Maria didn't let her lack of oxygen stop her though, knowing that he'd be on his feet again soon. She stood up and grabbed her dagger, which had fallen to the floor sometime during this process. A darkness overcame her as she looked down at him, his eyes looking up at her. A darkness she hadn't felt for so long. She leaned down, the man seeming to see something in her eyes that made him cower away from her instead of fighting her. Probably the darkness she felt inside of her.

Crouching down next to him and raising the dagger to his throat, the man let out a gasp. However, Maria hindered herself, not letting that darkness take her over. Instead, she used the back of her dagger to knock him unconscious. She stood back up, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths, both to calm herself down and to get more air back into her lungs.

She wasn't a murderer.

She was an Avenger.

These men were military men who risked their lives for their country all the time. They weren't bad people and they shouldn't be killed.

This she reminded herself off as she calmed herself down.

She turned back to the vault behind which Sam's wings were. With a roll of her eyes, she realized she only needed a key card from one of the guards to open it and so, she did just that, opening the vault easily. Inside, the gear was placed on a steel table in the middle of the room. Maria looked around the room before entering, seeing no security cameras and no traps whatsoever. Even though she knew Natasha had made sure the cameras were playing the feed from the day before, she couldn't risk setting off an alarm.

Walking inside, she grabbed the gear, pushing the button Sam had told her to push to retract the wings to turn the gear into a simple backpack, before turning back towards the vault door. However, just as she did, the very thing she didn't want to happen, happened. The high pitched blare from an alarm was heard. The lights suddenly dimmed down, a strange red light mixing in with it. The door began to close in on itself again and she hurried to slip through the doors with Sam's gear in her arms before she was locked in.

Multiple guards were running her way, guns pointed at her. They were too many for her to take on herself, yet she had no time to get up into the vent before they arrived. Thinking quickly, she put on the backpack as quickly as she could. Making sure the backpack was strapped to her waist and shoulders, she turned her attention back to the approaching guards, letting out a long breath to calm her beating heart.

Maria didn't like flying.

Pressing a white button, the wings appeared again and she was lifted up into the air. It was a bit wobbly, though she was unsure of whether it was due to her flapping arms or the fact that the gear had not been used in so long.

Before the guards could even tell her to stand down, she had begun to lean forwards. At first the wings brought up her up to the ceiling, causing her to bump her head. But then she leaned forwards even more, managing to turn and take off down the hall, flying over the guards who shot aimlessly at her.

As she tried her best to turn at as many corners as she could, she eventually lost the guards. Unsure of how to land, she pressed the white button again. The engine stopped and the wings retracted, and Maria fell face first to the floor.

"Great…"

Grunting, she stood back up again and found the first grate opening she could, climbing inside without even thinking about whether it was a way out or not. Luckily, it was, and she managed to crawl all the way back to a grate leading to the back of the museum. Crawling in the tight space with the backpack on was a bit difficult, but she did so none the less, gracefully landing on the outside again.

The alarm could be heard outside as well, and she wondered what Steve and the others must be thinking now.

Setting off in a jog, Maria arrived at the truck within a few seconds.

"Inside!" called Maria, slapping Sam's hands away from her as he tried to grab the backpack from her. The four of them jumped into the truck, Steve pressing his foot against the gas and driving off. Not until Maria couldn't see Fort Meade anymore did she relax and begin to unstrap herself from the backpack.

"Did you use it?" asked Sam, whom was sitting next to her in the back.

"Had to. Alarm went off."

"Shit, are you okay?" asked Sam, though just as Maria was about to answer, Sam grabbed the backpack from her and began to carefully check so they weren't damaged. He hadn't been talking to her.

Maria glared at him until he noticed, "What?"

Zola's algorithm was something that they needed to know more about before they could come up with a major plan. Therefore, Sam had managed to get James Sitwell to Natasha, Steve and Maria. They knew for a fact that he worked for Hydra now since he had been on the ship that was shipping the algorithm to begin with. Getting out more information from him was the first thing they needed to do.

Therefore, Steve was currently holding Sitwell by the collar of his fancy suit dangerously close to the edge of a high skyscraper. Although he had looked rather scared at first, a cocky grin was now plastered onto his face, causing Maria to glare at him.

"Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof?" asked Sitwell, shaking his head at Steve. "'Cause it's really not your style, Rogers."

Steve offered a faked smile to Sitwell, letting him go and brushing him off. "You're right. It's not mine."

"But it's mine," added Natasha, grabbing onto him as Steve stepped back. Sitwell's eyes widened as she mimicked what Steve had just done, placing him dangerously close to the edge again. "You wanna tell me or do you wanna fly?"

"I-I don't know anything," stammered Sitwell.

"You know," said Natasha quietly, slowly starting to let go of him to which seemed to make him relax a bit.

"At least you're not Dalton," mumbled Sitwell to which Maria frowned and Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Oh, believe me, Romanoff can do exactly what I was taught to do by your people."

Sitwell chuckled. "Doesn't matter. Because I don't know anything."

Natasha glanced back at Maria and Steve, whom both nodded their heads. Nat turned her attention back to Sitwell with a smirk, "I don't believe you."

With a single, soft push against his chest, Sitwell toppled over the edge and fell. Nonchalantly, she turned her back towards the edge and looked over at Steve and Maria again. At the same time as she did, Sam flew down towards them, letting Sitwell, whom he had caught in midair, fall down next to the three of them once more before he landed next to Maria, nodding his head at her.

"Well?" asked Maria with a cute little smile playing on her lips.

"Zola's algorithm is a program for choosing-" he said as he shifted so he was positioned on his knees, looking up at the four of them. He gulped once, still panting from the fear of having nearly fallen down a skyscraper. "- for choosing Insight's targets."

"Insight?" asked Maria.

"I'll tell you later," mumbled Steve to Maria before he turned to Sitwell; "What targets?"

"You!" he exclaimed before continuing. "A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defence, a high school Valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Matt Murdock, Doctor Stephen Strange, uh, some man in a wheelchair… just, anyone who's a threat to Hydra. Now or in the future."

Maria's eyes widened. Not only were she and her current team members on that list, but also Bruce and Matt who both had nothing to do with any of what was going on at the moment. In fact, it sounded like all those who had special abilities were chosen by this project. This was bigger than she had thought at first.

"In the future? How could it know?" asked Steve, earning a chuckle from Sitwell.

"How could it not?" he shot back. "The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught Hydra how to read it. Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, you damn SAT scores! Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."

"And what then?" asked Maria quietly.

"Oh my God… Pierce is going to kill me," said Sitwell, looking down at the ground in realization of what he had just told them.

"We don't care!" exclaimed Maria, genuinely concerned for those close to her and the world. "What then?"

"Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at the time," said Sitwell, causing Maria to look over at Steve with wide eyes.

This wasn't good. Innocent people were going to be killed just because of a possibility that they had superpowers of some sort? That they were enhanced; mutants? They had to stop it before the program could be started. And that, they had to do all on their own without SHIELD backing them up like they had last time.

This was going to be difficult.