Chapter 19: Confronting the Past -Part 2

AN: This is going to hurt. Essentially I'm showing you that Steven is a very nice guy when he could be very, very evil. Be prepared for another roller coaster ride. This is getting into the dubious shit (pardon my French) that Steven is involved in as part of the Agency. You might need a shot of something strong for this.

Warning: this is rated M for a reason: references to past torture

Welp you've been warned!

Onto the Fic

The first thing she noticed when they got home was that Nick wasn't home yet. A not unusual sight considering their line of work, but the house was completely silent and dark, when the automatic lights should have turned on not that long ago. Sonia flipped the light switch and the lights continued to remain off.

"Power out," Alex asked, looking to his mother in confusion. Sonia looked out the door to the rest of the street and saw the power was on, just not at their house.

"No," she said, unease growing in her gut. She stepped cautiously further into the house. "Stay behind me," She ordered as she slowly drew her sidearm. Suddenly the door slammed shut behind them and a voice came out to the shadows in the living room.

"The power will stay out for as long as I wish it to, Agent Eukheri," the voice called; male young mid-twenties. Sonia jumped drawing up her sidearm towards where she heard the voice. "You won't need that," the voice said again and this time her gun fell to pieces in her hands. Sonia looked at the weapon in shock for a moment then fear, as the realization set in. Mutant; technopath, possibly class four or higher, and he just removed her only weapon from play.

"Mom," Alex said shakily and Sonia pulled him in close, her grip on his shoulder very hard as she tried to reassure herself that he was safe.

"Who are you," she asked, shakily. The man chuckled very softly, a very light huff of breath as if he was stifling a smile.

"Oh, I think you already know who I am," he said softly. His voice had a strange accent to it something that sounded almost New York, but with a strange inflection to the r sounds that was slightly more English sounding, and the way she said her married name sounded almost Russian. In all it sounded like someone whose accent had been overlaid with a different one out of years of disuse.

Suddenly the lights were on and there, standing in her living room, was a figure out of her worst nightmares. The crew that had worked on the Helicarrier were level seven agents and higher clearance but the footage was not. Thus it was never officially confirmed if the figure that had startled Agent Romanoff so badly as to draw her sidearm on sight was really the Winter Knight returned from twenty years of silence, and presumed death. Seeing this same cold figure she had seen in the footage in her living room, garbed in black and a red so dark it may as well be black. His hair was a brilliant honey color that looked rather dull at the moment and a darker mousy blond, but she had no doubt that in the sun it shone like gold. For a moment she hysterically wondered if it was a dye job, but his blows though dark where the same dark honey with brown.

The footage and the eyewitness accounts didn't do him justice. His presence while calm and collected still seemed to make her want to shake in her boots with terror. And for a moment she couldn't understand why, until it hit her like a brick to the face: power. The man had an aura of power and control around him like a barely leashed force of nature, and in that moment she suddenly understood why one of the most powerful women she had ever had the privilege of working with was so terrified of him: he wasn't human earthly power, he was something else, something more, something not of the earth, something not quite human, and that terrified her. In that moment she knew what it must have felt like for the Hebrews to be in the presence of one of the Angels, and it was utterly petrifying.

"What do you want," Sonia asked, her voice thin and breathless, almost a whisper of sound, barely heard that passed her lips, but he seemed to have heard it anyway. He sighed and looked at Alex, before his gaze slid up to hers and froze her solid.

"Your husband," he answered his voice soft with sympathy. Sonia's limbs only froze for a second in her shock as she pulled Alex closer.

"Why," she asked as Alex seemed to start shaking in her hold.

"You know why," he said, his eyes locked onto Alex's. "Your husband is a murderer," he said his voice soft and calm with an undercurrent of hardness to it that made her hair stand on end. She shook her head in denial but something inside didn't want to. His eyes rose up to hers again and suddenly she was trapped in the depths of those dark blue pools. They were dark and cold, and somehow they reminded her of a glacier, or a deep frozen lake. "He is a rapist, a serial killer." Suddenly Sonia's mind was drawn back to little discrepancies in his explanations as to why he was out so late or why he smelt of sex at odd hours of the day, when he was supposed to be a work or in the field investigating a new piece of intel, and in that moment she wanted to be sick. She had hoped it was an affair or something else, not this; never this.

"No, no," she denied, she didn't want to believe it, "m…my husband is a good man, a good intelligence agent, he's not… he can't be…" she denied weakly, her voice thin and faint.

"He is," the man said calmly, and looked out the window into her back yard, overflowing with flowerbeds and bushes of plants. "have you ever wondered why you have so many roses, so many hydrangea bushes, burning bush plants; so many… large plants, in large plots, that require … a big hole… to plant them?" his voice was calm and soft even but there was a hardness to his face, to his figure, that said he was holding on to that calm by a razor's edge. Tears suddenly ran down Sonia's face as she remembered when she came home to find that her husband had planted a large section of roses and burning bush plants and other flowers in view of their bedroom window. She just thought it was pretty and a sweet gesture after Alex was born; now … she didn't want to look at them anymore. She tore her gaze away from the plants that held a dark secret under their roots and looked back at the man who was now looking at her, and her son, his face cold and still as if etched from marble. There was judgment in his gaze and for a moment she felt as if he had looked into her soul and her heart and she was found wanting.

A sudden sob was torn from her throat, as the tears ran like rivers down her face. Alex shook like a leaf in her arms but didn't make a sound. He never did when it came to his father; he just froze and waited until he was alone to fall apart.

"How do you know this," Sonia asked. A wry look passed over the man's face before settling on a bland smile.

"Let's just say I was his first obsession," he answered. Tears ran freely down her face as she had a sinking feeling in her gut that they might not survive this encounter.

"Are you going to kill us," she asked, her voice just barely shaking, as she fell back on her training; trying to stay calm for Alex's sake. The man, the ghost, the Winter Knight, (for that was who he was, there was no denying it, not now) looked down at Alex and his cold imperious look faded into something soft and caring.

"No," he answered after a long moment. Sonia nearly fainted with relief when she relaxed. The Knight looked up at her and looked her dead in the eyes, those dark pools seeming to float in an abyss of black that was his mask. "You'll have to run," he said, his voice so serious and calm that it took her back.

"Why," Sonia asked and that wry look returned again, for a blink and it was gone again behind the careful urgency, and concern.

"Let's just say he won't take it well," he answered. Sonia nodded. She knew how he could be at times, and those times seriously scared her, but they were so brief that they never raised a single warning flag. "Trust me, I know."

"Where will we go," she asked in a weak voice, barely a whisper as Alex trembled in her hold.

"I have a friend who can help," he said before he looked down at Alex again. The Knight covered the distance between them a few strides, before he knelt down in front of Alex with a soft smile. "You have a gift, Alex;" he said suddenly, "don't let anyone tell you different." Alex nodded, and that soft look became warm. "Now I need to ask you something, and I need to know the truth, alright. Your father sometimes takes Phone calls when your mom's not home, doesn't he?" Alex hesitantly nodded, and the Knight smiled again, but it was tighter and strained with some underlying emotion Sonia couldn't guess because of the mask. "Have you ever overheard him talking to someone, anyone, about The Asset?" Sonia could hear the capital letters in the question. Whatever this Asset was, it was important to him. Sonia felt Alex nod and looked down to see him fiddling with the hem of his shirt, a habit she thought he had outgrown years ago.

"It was a few weeks back," he said, "he was on the phone with some guy, real important. I think his name was Pierce." Sonia felt a zing of shock run down her spine, and saw similar shock only just flit across the Knight's eyes before he seems to sag under the weight of some invisible grief. Sonia had no idea that her son just confirmed just how far the rot within SHIELD had gone.

"What were they talking about," he asked, his voice carefully calm and his hands forcefully relaxed.

"Dad was talking real loud, he didn't know I was home," Alex explained, "I heard him mention something called the Vault, and that they just moved the Asset in; maybe a bank, or something." A grateful smile pulls across the Knight's face, and if there was no mask to hide most of it, Sonia thought he might be very handsome. The smile was almost boyish and charming. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Alex's forehead, before he stood with a sigh. The professional face was pulled back on, and now that she saw it she knew he was a Professional, and he didn't do this for fun. He hated it, but something drove him to do this and there was an inkling suspicion in the back of her mind the Sonia thought might have something to do with this Asset.

"There's a car down the street," he said, "it's waiting for you. The tank is full; it's been altered for more fuel storage. There's no GPS or electronics in the car to track you, but there's a map in the glove compartment. Your route is outlined in red, don't take any detours; just follow the map. You won't need to stop for gas, just restroom breaks and only on the ones marked on the map that are safe. You'll have to toss you phones and laptops, and anything that can be tracked." He holds out his hand. Sonia looks down and sees that he's holding out a portable hard-drive. "This is for the data on your computers and electronics. It is a secure drive and should hold everything you need. It will clear out any tracking programs imbedded in the data so you can put them on new computers. In the center console are the identification papers you'll need to start over: Birth certificate, social security no., ID's, Driver's license, and the deed to a new house in Westchester, near the school Alex will be going to from now on. There is a bank book in the purse with enough money to help you stay off the radar until this is all over, and enough cash for you to make it to your new home comfortably." The Knight sided sadly, looked down at her son, "I know this will be hard to accept," he said with sympathy, "but your husband is a traitor, not just murderer. His real name is Nikola Andre Eukheriovich; he is a Russian Spy. He works for a terrorist group called HYDRA; always has. For this to work, he will have to think you're both dead. From now on your lives are over, as far as he is concerned."

Sonia looked down at the drive in her hand and back up to the man standing before her, her gaze flitted back down to Alex, as her mind went over everything. Her shoulders sagged and she nodded her head. They couldn't take anything, not even her bug-out bag, otherwise Nick, - no not Nick- Nikola, would know they were alive.

"Clothes," she asked, and he smiled.

"New clothes, and shoes," he said, "In bags, in your rooms; the tags have been removed. Change, then you'll leave; you'll take the bags and boxes with you. The old clothes stay here. I'll escort you out."

Sonia ushered Alex to his room to change before she found a bag and a box on her bed, just as he said. Sonia quickly changed, rolling up the clothes on the bed. Everything was there, even new underwear, and a bra. It was all the right size, and it fit just perfectly, though the outer clothes were just big enough to be roomy. Sonia suspected he guessed their sizes on the big size, but for everything else he probably had someone else pick them someone that knew their sizes. It should concern her but in this case it made he feel safe. It was as clean a bug out as she could have ever done, better even. She wasn't going to ask how he was going to make them just not vanish. Sonia suspected that he had his own methods for extraction, probably involving faking their deaths; considering that he was thought to have been dead for twenty years.

Sonia left the room with clothes in hand and helped Alex gather up his own things. Games and other things of value were to be left behind, and could be replaced, but it was hard telling a young teen that. Alex didn't put up a fight but he longingly looked at his STARK industries Gaming system for a moment before he sighed and put his old shoes in the new shoe box.

The Knight was still waiting for them, patiently when they finally emerged. Sonia handed over her old clothes, and Alex did the same, removing the shoes from the box, socks still inside them. An amused smirk pilled on the man's lips but otherwise didn't comment. He just quietly led them out through the back door, across the back yard full of flowers and what she now knew to be mass graves. There was a secret door in the back fence that she didn't know even existed, leading further credence to his charge against her now soon to be former husband. The door led directly into an alley, which he led them down in silence before they turned the corner and there was the old car, just as he promised.

It was an old Jeep, very late 90s model, in dark blue, little to no rust, which was a shock- Jeeps always rust; it's why she never bought one- the interior was a dark grey blue cloth. The radio was old but it looked new, and in fact, everything in it looked to have been taken apart and put back together with new old stock, it was so nice. Sonia thought this was the nicest car she had ever had in her life, and it was old. Alex got into the car first, and Sonia quickly followed. The glove box had a map in it just as the Knight had said and the center console had a large bag purse with everything else in it too, just as he promised.

"Stick to the route" the Knight said, as she rolled down the windows to thank him. "Don't deviate."

"What's your name," Sonia asked, "I have to at least know who to thank." He seemed to mull this over for a moment before he looked her in the eye.

"Steven," he answered and walked away, back the way they came and back to the house.

Sonia started the car and drove around the block and passed the front of her house one last time catching sight of two LMDs wearing their discarded clothes standing in the living room before the curtains were pulled shut, a second later she heard a depressed shot and a very slight flash, the only thing to indicate a gun went off twice in quick succession. Sonia put the house and their old lives in the rearview mirror, and there was only thing she could think of in that moment-

Good riddance.

Arion gently shut the bedroom door so as to not disturb the sole occupant of the bed. When Steven came home Arion immediately pulled him into his arms, and not a second later the man had fallen apart, sobbing and screaming himself hoarse into Arion's shirt. That was over an hour ago, and now, Arion had just put him to bed like a little child, still hearing Steven's begging pleas, not to leave him and for forgiveness.

Steven had fallen asleep in Arion's arms, in the bed; tear tracks still staining his face, even as he wept himself to exhaustion. Steven didn't even say what it was about, and to be honest Arion didn't want to know. He pressed a gentle kiss to his son's forehead, breathing soft spells of Power to protect his dreams and for restful sleep; Spells he had learned as a necessity after the War. They were far better than drugs and didn't leave him groggy after. The spells worked quickly and within moments Steven had dropped from exhausted dose into deep restful sleep.

Now Arion was faced with a task that he dreaded passing on: holding Steven's mind intact until this was finally over. But he knew that, even with his experiences from the War, there was only one person who really understood what Steven was going through and how to help.

Swallowing down his pride, Arion picked up the phone and dialed a number he once knew by heart and now so rarely used.

"Hello," a voice groggily answered on the other end.

"Nelyo," Arion asked, his voice shaken.

"Arion," Maedhros asked very much alert now. "What's happened?"

"I need you to come DC," Arion plead, "I don't think Steven can do this alone, und I don't think I can help him!" Maedhros sighed softly on the other end before Arion heard rustling.

"I'll be down in a few hours," Maedhros said, "I think I can catch the red-eye to DC, and be there before dawn."

"Hannon le, Maedhros," Arion said with as shaking voice. "Thank you so much."

TBC…

End note: okay I'm getting better at doing this, but it's still pulling teeth to get it out. Think I needed to do that little mean thing to Jango for a minute to get the creative juices going again.

The next Chapter is going to be very, very dark, and to be honest I have no idea where it came from, but it's there and I'm going to get it done.

I missed Bucky's B-day. AWW, Drat! Happy 105th B-day Bucky (belated)

Next up: Interrogation in SHIELD