A/N. Please note that I have changed the ages of the characters. To be clear, Steve is 24 (94), Tania is 25, Natasha is 24, Clint and Graham are 23, etc. These their ages because I didn't learn until a few months ago how old the characters actually were (Steve was 28 I think, Natasha was 29, and Clint was probably somewhere in his late thirties if AoU is anything to go by) and so I just made them up in previous installments. For the sake of continuity, the ages will remain the same as previously stated (aka wrong, but shh!). Please enjoy the next chapter of Brewing Coffee With Stania! :D
Disclaimer - I don't own the Avengers
Chapter Nine
They arrived at an abandoned camp of some sort about an hour later, the clouds blocking out all sunlight as they pulled up to the metal gate. Steve cut the engine and the three of them hopped out. Steve grabbed his shield from the back while Tania grabbed her borrowed bag, slinging it over her shoulder and weaving both arms through.
"This it?" She asked, looking around.
Natasha met them at the front of the truck, her phone raised high in the air as if to look for reception. "The file came from these coordinates," she confirmed, stuffing the cell in her back pocket.
They walked up to a sign on the gate that read:
Camp Lehigh
U.S. Army Restricted Area
"So did I," Steve said quietly. Without elaborating, he wrenched the gate open with his bare hands and entered the camp. "Let's spread out. Any idea what we're looking for?"
"A computer," replied Natasha. "Look for anything you could plug a USB into."
Orders set, the three of them split up to cover more ground. The camp was rather large. It was evident that it was really old and had been abandoned long ago.
With Steve being vague and nostalgic, it was inevitable that Tania start to make theories. It was a training camp, one that Steve was familiar with. The connections weren't hard to make. This must have been where he met Peggy, not to mention Erskine, Phillips, and Howard. Knowing those people and dozens of soldiers from World War Two had walked these very grounds, Tania felt solemn and appreciative as she searched. This was a piece of history.
They wandered around until the darkness engulfed them completely, shrouding the three of them with a sense of foreboding. As the evening wore on, they began to search closer and closer to each other, always making sure that one or the other was in their peripheral vision. Eventually, they were close enough to hold a conversation. Lit by the flashlights on their cell phones, the trio found themselves by a trail tgat looked like it had been used for a running track.
Natasha couldn't seem to hold it in any longer. "What did you mean when you said you came from here? You're being unusually cryptic today."
"This was where I was trained," he answered without turning to them.
"Change much?" She asked distractedly, using her phone to track the coordinates of the computer. Or something.
Steve stopped walking and stared up at a flagpole with undeniable nostalgia. Tania paused to watch him. "A little," he admitted quietly.
She watched as he stood there, transfixed by something near the flagpole. Maybe he was having a flashback? Was it good or bad?
"This is a dead end," Natasha declared loudly, interrupting both Tania and Steve's thoughts. They turned to look at her, the light from Tania's phone swinging around. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio." She pocketed her phone again. "Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." She didn't sound like this bothered her at all. They'd just driven three hours to a different state in a "borrowed" truck to learn absolutely nothing about Fury's death or the security or state of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Now what?" She turned to Steve, who was very good at giving orders, but he was distracted by something else. "Steve?"
"Follow me," he commanded and began speed walking for a building not too far away. Tania and Natasha hurried after him. "Army regulations forbid storing munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks." Um, okay? "This building's in the wrong place." They arrived at the doors of what Tania presumed was the munitions storage unit. How Steve could tell without a sign was beyond her, since he didn't appear to remember this thing being here. The doors to it were large, wooden, and locked.
Steve braced his shield on his arm and brought it down sharply on the lock. It gave way easily, having rusted over the years. He shifted the shield higher and braced both palms against the door. He gave a mighty heave and shoved them open with a long, loud creak.
Tania, the one with the flashlight, went in first. The unit itself was empty and dusty, but there was a staircase leading underground. Heart stuttering, Tania grabbed hold of the railing with one hand and kept her phone high with the other. She slowly made her way down the stairs, illuminating as much as she could. This reminded her very much of the time B.E.T.A. had climbed a lighthouse in search of clues to find the missing Avengers.
When she made it the floor, she searched the walls for a light switch. She found one and flicked it on. The room lit up section by section to reveal a rather large office floor. There were rows of desks and chairs aligned messily. Several layers of dust covered everything. Some lightbulbs flickered. On the wall was the insignia for the Strategic Science Reserve, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s precursor.
"This is S.H.I.E.L.D." Natasha's statement was unnecessary, but Tania didn't comment. It all came back to the same peace keeping organization.
"Where it started," Steve agreed, walking down the aisle between the desks, shadowed by Natasha and Tania, who turned her phone off. Her battery was very close to dying.
He led them to a room that looked like it was meant for files and paperwork. Square, wooden shelves lined the walls and there were a couple of tables strewn about. There was a filing cabinet in the corner. Hung on the wall were three photos. One of them depicted Colonel Phillips, the other one Howard Stark, and the third Peggy Carter.
"There's Tony's father," Natasha said.
"Yeah," Tania echoed. She missed Howard and Peggy. They'd been good people. Fun, too. And she felt bad for zapping Colonel Phillips so many times. Poor man.
Steve continued his rounds about the room, searching for something – anything. Tania dragged her fingers along the wall. The beige paint was crumbling and peeling. The dust came off on her hand. When was the last time anyone had been here? If it was recently, they obviously didn't care about keeping the place clean. Maybe it had been a touch-and-go kind of thing.
"If you're already working in a secret office…" Steve said out of the blue. Tania looked away from the wall and at Steve and Natasha, who stood in front of one of the shelves mostly covered in cobwebs. Steve reached for the crack between two shelving units and grabbed the side with one hand. He scrunched up his face and shoved the unit to the side. Tania stepped back and joined the others, watching as Steve single-handedly rearranged furniture three times his size to reveal a set of double doors. "… why do you need to hide the elevator?"
It was a valid question.
Steve tried to pry the doors open, severely denting his nails in the process. "We'll fix those when we can go home," Tania promised, peering at them.
"You are not touching my nails," Steve deadpanned, digging them further into the crack as he pushed with all his might.
"But they're all mangled now!"
"I can clip them."
"Filing would-"
"I'll clip them."
"B-"
"Guys," interrupted Natasha. "Let me." Steve stepped back and Natasha raised her phone, pointing the camera at the number pad to the right of the elevator. She opened an app to scan the buttons for fingerprints.
"That's amazing," Tania commented, forgetting all about Steve's nails (much to his relief). While to domesticity had been nice, reality was pushing too hard to ignore. Tania was doing her best to try anyway. "Do all Stark phones have that?"
"No. Just ours. Never know when an Avenger could need something like that. It's because it's a Stark phone that I haven't destroyed mine yet. They're completely untraceable."
"Good to know."
Natasha punched in the code and the doors opened obediently. The three of them exchanged wary glances. They were already underground. Just how far did this thing go? They entered the elevator without a word. There was only one button on the inside, so Natasha pressed it. The doors closed and down they went.
"There's no music in this elevator either," Tania said.
The silence was unnerving. The lack of windows, especially compared to the elevator at the Triskelion, was also unnerving. They descended for what felt like a longer time than what probably was. There was a "ding!" and the doors pushed open.
It was a room blanketed in darkness. For a few moments, nobody made any move to enter. Tania was getting a seriously creepy "haunted house" vibe from this place. To her surprise, Steve grabbed her hand. She looked over at him. Was he scared?
"Stay close," he ordered.
Oh. That made sense. He was worried something might happen to her or Natasha. Right. Nothing to be scared of.
Gulp.
Steve stepped out first, followed by Tania, followed by Natasha. Tania kept a firm grip on Steve's hand. She was still wearing the bag she'd stolen over one shoulder. Her batons were inside. She took comfort knowing that they were close by, but they weren't quick to reach. Well, not quick enough that if she were in a fight could get them out immediately.
The doors closed behind them and they all looked back. They're not locked, Tania repeated to herself firmly. They're not locked. They're not locked. We can go back any time we want.
A few more steps further and the lights flickered to life. Motion sensor. Now brightly lit, Tania could see that the room was somewhat expansive and filled to the brim with computers. Well, one large computer that took up the entire room. She'd heard somewhere that the first ever computer was large like this one. In fact, this was exactly how she'd pictured that computer.
There was a slightly raised platform, surrounding which appeared to be the main parts of the computer. There were a few monitors and keyboards and such. They stepped onto the platform, observing their surroundings in awe.
It was like the suspense had been sucked out of the room when the lights came on, but Tania still had a feeling in her gut that whatever she was afraid of hadn't magically gone away.
"This can't be the data point," Natasha told them, looking around in disbelief. Well, she had said to look for a computer. "This technology's ancient."
"I haven't seen another computer anywhere. Have you?" Tania was staring at the hundreds of reels forming a maze on either side of the platform. How many were there?
"No, but I think I understand now."
Tania and Steve made their way over and found what Natasha was referring to. There was a sleek, black hard drive plugged in to the computer with a couple of USB slots. It looked modern. In hindsight, it should have stuck out like a sore thumb, but to Tania and Natasha, the old computers were the weird part of this picture. Also in hindsight, the motion sensor lights should have tipped them off to the not so ancient technology.
Natasha pulled Fury's USB out of her sweater pocket and inserted it into one of the slots. The reels came to life and began to spin. Lights on the monitors and devices flashed colourfully. Something hummed loudly in the background and the floor vibrated slightly. More lights came on and the camera on top of the main monitor began to move.
Tania was officially creeped out.
Green letters appeared on the screen as if someone was typing them.
Initiate system?
The words were accompanied by an equally creepy robotic voice that read them aloud. When no one moved, Natasha took the final step forward and bravely typed out an answer on the keyboard. "Y-E-S spells yes," she sung under her breath. They waited as something booted up. "Shall we play a game?" She asked in an imitation robot voice with an off-kilter smile. She stood up to her full height so that she didn't have to bend over the keyboard anymore. "It's from a movie that was really popular-"
"Yeah, I know," Steve said. "We saw it." Tania and Steve had marathoned a bunch of older movies to catch him up on pop culture back around the time they'd first met.
The screen sparked with green lines that soon formed a face. It was the face of an older male with round spectacles. Tania couldn't tell much more than that. Then the face moved.
"Rogers, Steven," it spoke. While the voice was definitely robot-sounding, the tones and inclinations were frighteningly human. "Born 1922."
Tania shivered. The camera whirred and turned to face her. "Banks, Tania. Born 1989." How did it know that? It had facial recognition? That was way advanced for a computer this archaic. The camera moved again and slowly turned to face Natasha, who was looking just as freaked out by this as Tania was. "Romanova, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1990."
"It… must be some kind of recording," Natasha tried to rationalize, staring openly with wide eyes at the computer.
"I am not a recording, Fraulein," the computer exclaimed. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945…" He sounded bitter about that fact. "But I am…" he trailed off.
Tania knew J.A.R.V.I.S. so talking computers wasn't much of a step up. But was this a real A.I.? Sure, J.A.R.V.I.S. had sarcasm and attitude and such, but those were programs. Emotion was something completely different that Tony had yet to master. The robotic butler wasn't a real artificial intelligence. Could this…?
A picture of a real person popped up on one of the secondary monitors. Tania recognized him from somewhere. A high school textbook, maybe? It was of an older male with round… glasses. Oh. But… but…
Tania's mind was drawing blanks repeatedly, like a printer that wouldn't stop spitting out empty pages.
Steve leaned forward. Natasha, who stood on Steve's other side, stepped closer to him. "You know this thing?" It was obvious that she was having a hard time wrapping her head around this too. Aliens were one thing, but technology this advanced on a computer this old just wasn't possible.
Steve slid his hand out of Tania's, apparently no longer worried, and stepped off the platform so that he could get a better look at the back of the computer. "Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for Red Skull," he explained. "He's been dead for years." His tone held a trace of refusal to believe what was right in front of him.
"First correction: I am Swiss. Second: look around you. I have never been more alive." There was definitely some sort of German or apparently Swiss accent to the computer. J.A.R.V.I.S. was British, though, so… "In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however… that was worth saving."
Doubt it, Tania thought as Steve came all the way around and stood between the two women once again, taking his place at the head of their little triangle. He took Tania's hand again, this time for reassurance. She squeezed and he squeezed back.
The computer, Zola, went on. "On two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You… are standing in my brain."
"How did you get here?" Steve demanded to know. Why was Zola downloaded onto a S.H.I.E.L.D. computer if he was Hydra?
"Invited," Zola answered proudly.
"It was Operation Paperclip," Natasha blurted. Her eyes were blank, like she was too busy searching her mind for this information to bother staring at anything in particular. "After World War Two, S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with…" She shrugged awkwardly. Natasha was never awkward. "… strategic value."
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."
"The worst of Hydra died with the Red Skull," Steve stated firmly. "And then again with Neo Red Skull." Tania wasn't sure who he was trying to convince.
"Cut off one head… two more shall take its place." A Hydra symbol appeared on the screen briefly before the creepy face that bore a remarkable resemblance to the real Zola reappeared. It split into two separate faces and then melded back into one, glitching occasionally as the green lines blurred in and out.
"Prove it."
Tania was pretty sure that Steve was going to regret saying that.
Zola seemed almost glad to have been asked. All of the monitors surrounding Zola's "face" began to flicker as images and files flashed past. "Accessing archive. Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist."
Several clips and footage from the war played on screen. Red Skull was there. Steve was there. She squeezed his hand again. He did not respond.
"The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded and I was recruited. The new Hydra grew; a beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years, Hydra has been secretly feeding crises, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate? History was changed." Images of the Winter Soldier appeared.
Natasha looked severely flabbergasted as she stepped up. "That's impossible," she breathed. "S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you." It went unspoken that Fury would have stopped him too.
"Accidents happen," argued Zola smugly. A newspaper article popped up with the headline describing Howard and Maria Stark's deaths. Tania's hand flew to her mouth. No. Tony's parents. Howard and Maria. The car accident…
… wasn't an accident.
Fury's picture flickered past next. The word "deceased" was stamped across it.
Both heads of S.H.I.E.L.D. found out about Hydra. Both were murdered for it. By the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier who was Hydra.
Zola went on as if he hadn't just shattered their entire worlds. "For those who could not get into S.H.I.E.L.D, they waited in their homes. In January of 2013, the outsiders became impatient and formed a group of small Hydra followers led my Dominik Schmidt. They were not willing to wait for Pierce to make the order. As a result, they were defeated. I have to thank you, Captain. They were starting to get troublesome."
Steve clenched his fists. All that they had gone through… all that they had suffered… for all the fighting that they had done to ensure the destruction of Hydra twice over… all they had really done was destroy a single branch off of a healthy tree
"Those of us patient enough to wait created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, Hydra's new world order will arise." He threw up pictures and videos of helicarriers and something called Project Insight. What did that mean? "We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life." Zola's face twisted into a nasty grin. "A zero sum."
Steve let go of Tania and threw a powerful punch at the screen, cracking a hole straight through it. Zola cut off abruptly and the face disappeared. Tania gasped. She was appalled at his violent reaction. Before she could think about it too much, the face reappeared on one of the secondary monitors. "As I was saying," he continued.
This was so messed up.
"What's on this drive?" Steve demanded angrily, his knuckles scratched and red.
"Project Insight requires… insight. So I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Natasha spoke up, equally angry.
Tania was just in shell shock.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it." What?
Something whirred behind them and they all spun around. Metal doors were closing in front of the elevator: their only way out. Steve reacted quickly and flung his shield forward. It bounced off the metal doors just as they closed and it rebounded faithfully back to him.
Natasha pulled out her phone, which was apparently beeping. "Guys, we got a bogie. Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops."
Holy shit.
"Who fired it?" Steve asked.
Natasha lowered her phone, eyes wide. "S.H.I.E.L.D."
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain."
Right. The homing program. The whole nine minutes thing. God damn!
Natasha yanked out the USB as rapidly as Steve had done at the mall. Zola ranted on calmly. "Admit it. It's better this way."
Tania spun around. There was nowhere to run. "We need some place to hide!"
"We are both of us…"
Steve yanked a grate out of the floor and threw it across the room.
"… out of time."
"In here!"
Natasha ran for it and jumped in. Tania sped after her-
BOOM!
She was picked up by the wind and flew forward. Heat lashed out from behind, scraping her back like a powerful whip. Steve grabbed her hand midair and together they fell into the hole that had been beneath the grate. She landed on her back and Steve landed beside her.
The explosions were deafening. There were booms and fire and falling rocks and the clanging of metal and weight and Steve was screaming and she was screaming and pain and roaring and crumbling and impending death-