The Curse of Dr. Zola
Chapter 27
Interlude
She tasted blood.
Her lip had split from the blow she had received. The next one sent her sprawling across the floor.
"You were supposed to wait for orders. They've been removed from the premises. We don't know where. Our other contact cannot locate them at this time. Report to room 1."
Fear flashed in her eyes. "I will find them! I can do it. Just let me have the time and I will find them."
"Report to room 1 and then we'll see about assigning the next part of the mission to you."
Her breath quickened, and her heart raced. Not room 1! Not room 1! But her feet carried her along as ordered. If she didn't report there, it would only be worse for her.
As she got off the elevator, she could already hear the agonized screaming down the hall. The lights dimmed and brightened as the circuits were intermittently rerouted to accommodate the power levels.
When she entered room 1, she saw a familiar face, and her stomach turned.
The Asset had been called in from the other department, and was being mind-wiped in the chair of agony. His body shook and struggled against the metal restraints that held him fast in the chair as another wave of electricity surged thru his body and brain and he screamed. The doctors looked on dispassionately, just checking their instrument panels for anything unusual. Nothing unusual ever happened. It was just another day at the office.
Another scream split the air as the wave hit him again; his voice raw from the agony he was experiencing.
She sat and waited for her turn; soon she'd be the one screaming. And then afterwards; she knew what was coming afterwards….if he was here, she knew what was coming.
She rolled over, and every part of her body hurt. She had lost consciousness for a while, but to the Asset, it didn't matter. He had been given a reward for a job well done and he made sure he took advantage of every minute.
One hour. Only one hour to do with her whatever he pleased. He beat her. He choked her til she nearly passed out. And then he ripped off her clothes and raped her. She endured it, every minute of his incessant thrusting. He was beyond any reason. His only focus was his reward. His reward was her punishment and he raped her.
It hadn't mattered to him that she lost consciousness from the pain. Pain brought order. Order only came from pain. She needed to learn a lesson, and he made sure she learned it whether she was awake for it or not. When she did wake up, she'd know he hadn't spared her any mercy.
She looked around the cell. The Asset had gone, but the pain of him still lingered all over her body, especially between her legs. She would heal, the serum in her blood made sure of that, but it did nothing to stop the pain. Dottie laid her head back down on the cement floor and closed her eyes; her red hair in a spray around her head.
2 months later….
Enough of the work had been completed that Mary, Bucky and Steve were able to move back in. Workmen would still be around during the day, giving them extra protection, but less privacy.
The first night back Mary had a nightmare about Bucky getting captured and tortured. She couldn't go back to sleep after that, so they spent the rest of the night cuddled up on the sofa. That's where Steve found them at daybreak.
Bucky waved at him to be quiet. Mary had finally just closed her eyes. "I just got her to sleep."
Steve nodded and motioned that he was going to go for a run. He tiptoed past them and snuck out the front door.
When he got back, Bucky had placed Mary in their bed, and she was still sleeping. Bucky was making coffee and breakfast in the kitchen. Steve clasped his shoulder in sympathy.
"She had a rough night." Bucky's voice broke. "She's more worried about me than for herself." Tears moistened his eyes.
"I'm here Buck; you know that."
Bucky nodded.
Together, they worked on breakfast for themselves, and cleaned up.
Workmen showed up all too soon, and woke Mary. She staggered out and sat at the table, but she only had coffee. Bucky tried to get her to eat something, but she refused. He was mad that they woke her, but the work needed to get done. He wanted their lives to go back to normal, but it wasn't clear what normal was anymore.
A SHIELD agent arrived shortly thereafter with a message that they would be rotating on shifts. Upon hearing this, Mary made sure there were clean sheets and blankets for the overnighters to use while sleeping on the sofa.
A week later Agent 13, Kate, arrived. "I've been placed on the evening shifts temporarily and they'll be just one agent covering days going forward. Director Fury had to juggle some staff around, but he thought it better for you if there was some continuity." And to keep secrets secret.
The work continued on Steve's cottage as well. Mary had hired a local company to build Steve his own place. Everyone who came to work had to pass Mary's scrutiny or face her wrath. Kate seemed to have a calming effect on Mary, and it did them both a world of good to keep each other company.
As September rolled around, Steve booked a flight to California to go see Peggy. Too much had happened for him to feel confident enough to leave before then.
They dropped him off at the airport and wished him well.
Life was beginning to get back to some semblance of normal, for them at least. Tony was back in the news as his house in Malibu was blown up. He was presumed dead at the time.
Steve took a deep breath and walked into Peggy's room and sat down at her bedside.
Her eyes lit up like the Fourth of July. "Steve! You're alive! You're alive!"
Steve smiled and held her hand. "I couldn't leave my best girl behind, not when she owes me a dance."
The conversation started and stopped, and looped around again. Steve smiled, but his eyes showed the heartbreak he felt. He willed tears not to fall.
The dementia had taken her ability to remember so much, but she remembered him. No matter how many times her memory failed her; she always came back and remembered Steve.
Just before he left, her mind cleared for one brilliant moment, and she told him where to find a journal she'd kept about the war. "Show no one! Not even Colonel Phillips. He'd be mad at me." And then she slipped back into the cloudiness that every dementia patient experiences, where time had no meaning.
He read it on the flight back, and it filled in more blank spaces than he could've imagined. Then he got to the part where Peggy was working with the SSR after the war.
She detailed her misadventures with Jarvis; trying to find out who framed Howard Stark, who stole all the darker inventions he'd made, the last vial of Steve's blood, and the red-haired, Russian LEVIATHAN assassin Peggy fought named Dorothy Underwood, aka Dolores, aka Dottie, and how she disappeared after their fight in 1947. Steve's stomach turned as he fingered the old photograph. It was the woman Bucky had met in Rockaway Beach, and dated all summer. She had the reddest hair of any girl they'd ever met up until the time they met Natasha.
Steve's lower lip trembled and his body shook with anger. How much had she known? Was she sent to kill Bucky? Or worse; was she sent to recruit him? Did she have anything to do with Bucky's capture?
The last question was killing him. Was she still alive somehow?
They were questions Steve had to have the answers to.