Chapter 30. Response
While they travelled to their destination Will brought Merton up to speed on what they were facing. Ariel was being held in a fortified apartment building built in the early 20th century, in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn. According to drone surveillance with penetrating radar and listening capabilities, the entire building was headquarters for the current version of HYDRA, calling themselves Phoenix, presumably because they would be reborn over and over again. Merton rolled his eyes at the younger historian who shrugged. These groups always had someone who thought they were original thinkers when they were coming up with names. It was the site of their portal operation, persona treatment room, communications hub, residence, and holding centre.
"How many floors?" he asked.
"Twenty," said Will. "The operative is supposed to have left us an open door at the top, and she's also given us the code to enter at the main floor. Resistance is expected as they have an armoury of traditional weapons and a security detail of about two dozen people, in addition to about 30 staff. That's why we've been issued handguns. The security team will also be using the standard stun weapons. Peri wants prisoners. We three are tasked with getting to Ariel. She's being held in a secure room on the tenth floor. Her door will be marked with an X, visible only in black light."
He pulled a black light flashlight out of a pocket on his pant leg. Sam Wilson did the same. Merton looked at Sam with some concern.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "You were in bad shape. You both were."
Sam nodded. "I was up and walking without pain the next day. The following day after that they restored the time I spent in 1940. Since then, Will and I have been training with the team, waiting for the call. The time in 1940 was an eye opener for me. How's Bucky?"
"The attack shook him deeper than we realized," said Merton quietly. "He went to see his parents." Both Will and Sam were startled. "He didn't reveal himself to them, just watched them from a distance. But there was a situation at the grocers, and he had direct contact with his mother and sister. That affected him even more. He's been relocated but I don't know where or when."
As they approached the target building Will informed Merton that Alpha security team had already set up a perimeter at the base of the building. They, along with Bravo security team, would be landing on top, accessing the building from the open door on the roof. The operative would identify herself with the word "polka" while their response was "Lindy hop." Merton smiled, remembering that was what Peri told him to pass on in 1940. A thought entered his head, and he wondered about it then shook it off, as he had been greeted by Peri at the control room.
"Prepare for landing," crackled his earpiece as the pilot advised them he was landing on the roof.
The door slid open, and the security team exited first, spreading out over the rooftop before two tried the door. It was unlocked and they took the point. Sam, Will, and Merton inserted themselves into the middle of the formation on their descent down the stairs. As they approached the different floors two men on the team entered each floor to secure it while the others continued down. Once the team members split off, they confirmed by comms when they had accomplished their objective, to rejoin the foray.
They arrived at the tenth floor and two men went ahead with their stun weapons at the ready, followed by Sam, Will, and Merton, who all pulled their weapons out when they heard actual gunfire, unsure where it was coming from.
"Taking fire on the eleventh floor," stated one of the other men calmly who had received an update in his comms. "Proceed with caution here."
Will nodded at Sam, both pulling their flashlights out of their pants pockets, and shining them on the doors, until they found the big X mark on one of them. Before they could open it there was a yell as two men began firing at them. Hiding opposite each other in two alcoves while the others were pinned down further back Sam looked at Will who used military sign language to ask Sam to cover him. Sam responded with the signal for acknowledgement. Counting down on his fingers from three to one Sam began firing while Will dove forward into the open and took two shots, hitting both men in the chest sending them down. Both of them advanced on the men, removing their firearms and checking their pulses, confirming they were dead.
"You sure you're not military?" asked Sam, impressed at Will's performance.
Will smiled. "I did my two years compulsory service when I was eighteen. Some things you don't forget."
They returned to the marked door noticing the keypad entry required a code so Will shot it out making the door slide open. As the men went inside the darkened room there was the sound of a chair being dragged across the room then whimpering. The chair stopped and they heard a terrified female voice.
"Merton, Will?"
"Get the lights on," said Merton, striding forward into the dark room, almost stumbling across an unconscious man on the floor.
The lights came on and a haggard looking Ariel with just underwear on rushed towards him. Quickly he enclosed her in his arms and hugged her, shushing her gently as she cried. Sam went further into the room and pulled a sheet off the bed, wrapping it around her shoulders, noticing the combination of anger and fear on Merton's face as he held Ariel. She took it then looked up at him, recognition appearing on her face.
"You were at the fireworks and the World's Fair," she said. "Who are you?"
"Sam Wilson," he said. "Bucky's friend from 2024. We were brought in to help."
She looked from him to Merton, suddenly realizing he was younger, then at Will. "Where's Bucky?"
Merton shook his head. "I honestly don't know," he said. "He was sent to another place and time to deal with Lowell Mason and May Weatherly, but I wasn't told the details."
Her shaking hand ran through her hair as if she was still confused then Ariel looked up at Merton again. "Paulina, the operative, is she okay?"
At that moment the men heard the call on their comms. "Medic, fourth floor, operative down."
Will looked with concern at him then at Sam and the two men left, leaving Merton with Ariel. "There's been a request for a medic. The operative is down. Don't worry, they'll take care of her. Let's get you dressed and up to the transport, okay?" For a moment he almost lost it then he hugged her again so she wouldn't see his glassy eyes and trembling lips.
"Merton," she looked at the man on the floor. "He tried …."
"It's okay." He held her close again. "You're safe, Ariel. Let's find you something to wear and get you home."
Will and Sam ran down the stairs in time to see the medic running the diagnostic unit over a red-haired woman on the floor. She had a bullet wound in her side, but she was conscious and talking to the medic. There was still the sound of gunfire in the building but as more of the team members checked in, they confirmed the building was theirs. A few minutes later Merton came off the elevator and approached the group. The security team parted to let him through, and he approached the operative whose face was still blocked by the presence of the medic. When he saw her, he almost blurted out her name, but she shook her head and he focused on the medic instead.
"Report," he said, with authority.
"It was a through and through, didn't hit any major organs but she should be checked out at a medical facility," said the medic.
"Clear the floor," ordered Merton, "Will and Sam, stay." Once the security team was gone Merton offered the woman his hand to stand up and hugged her. "What year are you from?"
"2172," she said. "I resigned to do this. I'm dying, Merton, sooner rather than later and I expected it to be a one-way assignment. You found Ariel?"
"Yeah, she's okay but one of Mason's men tried to assault her," he said. "She knocked him out." The red head was angry but not surprised. "Will, Sam, this is Peri Wayne, from 2172, her persona is how she really looked at the age of 32. What's the plan?"
She tilted her head and smiled at him. "You know I can't really tell you, but Lowell Mason and May Weatherly escaped. I have to follow them, after I change my clothes to something less bloody." He began to object but she put her hand on his. "I have a team there."
"Skye," he said but she didn't respond. Then he shook his head. "And Bucky?"
"I can also call in Hal, but I would rather not," she said, nodding her head in confirmation. "I think the three of us can handle the two of them."
Merton got a message from the leader of Alpha team on his comms and acknowledged it. "Three. They're in the portal room, said it shows three people went through."
"Damn, is there a recording of who?" she asked. Merton relayed the question then shook his head. "I would need to see security images of who was here although I have an idea of who it is. You'll have to time my arrival there for before Bucky's arrival. I know their target."
"Who?" asked Merton.
"Steve Rogers, just after his transformation," she said. "The girl in the bookstore was legitimate but they found out about Ariel showing Steve how to kiss. They're going to dose May with a pheromone booster to seduce him when he's packing up his place. We'll need a decoy to delay him. I would have used you, but you and Ariel had already returned."
"Send me back," said Merton. "I don't need much adjusting. I could tell Steve I came back to close out my bank accounts."
"Okay, but we'll use their persona room here," said Peri. "They must have more clothing that you can wear." She looked at Will and Sam. "Not a word to the others about me, even current Peri. There may still be infiltrators among us although I'm pretty certain we hit them hard. Will, download all of their records and take them back to HQ. Just like HYDRA in the 20th century they were pretty fanatic about keeping records of their accomplishments. Send the teams to take DNA samples of everyone and of their personal possessions to identify who else were with Lowell in this dump. Sam, if you could escort Ariel back to HQ, I would appreciate that. I suspect she'll have a need to talk to someone and your counselling background would be very helpful right now. If everything goes okay in 1943 everyone will be back in their own times by tomorrow at the latest."
Within half an hour Paulina/Peri had changed and was already going through the images trying to determine who the third person was. Merton underwent another transformation back to his 1940s self and Sam was already en route to the Historians headquarters with Ariel in a drone transport. She asked him many questions about his time in 1940 but he could tell she was fishing for information about Bucky as well. He told her as much.
"Am I that transparent?" she asked.
"About him, yes," said Sam. "Look, I don't know you but I do know when someone has feelings for another person. You still love him, despite what his 26 year old self did to you in 1943. I can tell you with certainty he never got over you. He told me about you, in 2024. Said he was likely destined to be a bachelor as penance for hurting you."
"He really said that?"
Sam nodded.
"Bucky hates hospitals, hates anything that could mess with his body, even when he's injured," said Sam. "He'll dig bullets out of himself and stitch himself up rather than see a doctor because he doesn't trust anyone to treat him if he's out of it. But when Peri determined you had been taken and she wanted to send him back to 1940 to guard you on your assignment she said he would have to be changed in appearance. He didn't hesitate to do it. That's how much he still loves you."
Ariel rubbed her face with her hands then looked at Sam, unsure of herself. She had said some hurtful things to Bucky in Peri's apartment and had even hit him, several times. He took it all without complaint. Paulina said he still loved her and that they could have a good life together if she wanted it. But what if he didn't want her anymore and only came to the past out of a sense of guilt or obligation to make it up to her? Did she really want a relationship based on that?
"Sam, does he really love me or is he just making amends?" she asked.
"Do you remember July 4, 1940?" asked Sam. "You first saw us that evening when we made sure you and Rebecca didn't get hurt in that fight that broke out. It was an attempt to take you, by the way. We arrived a few days before and were given the use of a car so Bucky could show me his Brooklyn. We ended up on the same beach where you continued your first date."
Ariel smiled fondly, remembering that night, how they walked on the beach in the moonlight, in their bare feet. "What did he say?" she asked.
"We were talking about his memories returning, after he escaped HYDRA, and I asked if what they did to him did a real number on the memories of you," replied Sam. "He said they were very fragmented; that there were occasional snippets of your face, memories of your perfume, and what he felt when you were together. Right away he recognized them as good memories and he clung to them. The memory of you two on the beach came back in a single night's dream, in its entirety. When he woke up, he cried because he realized how precious it was. Then a moment later he remembered the last day, when you broke up. It crushed him, because he realized he lost you because he was a man of his times, unwilling to bend."
"Neither of us were," she said quietly, remembering that painful morning.
"I asked him if he was still that way about women." Sam watched Ariel's face carefully. "It took a long time for him to answer but he said he wasn't that way anymore, especially when it came to you. He would still be protective of you, but he wouldn't hold you back, and if you decided you didn't want him, he would let you go. It's your decision whether you continue on with him. He'll accept whatever you finally decide. That's how much he loves you." He watched her carefully as she processed his observations. "Can I ask you something else? You don't have to answer if you don't want to." She nodded. "The unconscious man in your room. What was he trying to do?"
At that moment the AI announced the transport was docking at Historians headquarters. She looked sadly at Sam, not speaking. When docking was complete Sam stood up and offered Ariel his hand, whispering when she was ready to talk he would listen. They exited the vehicle together where Ariel was immediately greeted and given an emotional hug from Peri Wayne. It surprised the young historian, as Peri had never shown such emotion to her before. Sam watched carefully, suspecting there was more to this reunion than Peri was letting on to either of them. A medical team came and led Ariel away, with Peri watching them carefully until she was out of earshot. The Chair of the Historian's Guild turned to him, calming herself before addressing him.
"Thank you for your help," she said. "I have received a report from the commander of Alpha team that Merton accompanied the operative back to 1943, in pursuit of Lowell Mason, May Weatherly and a third individual. Had they identified the person before you left with Ariel?"
He shook his head. "Will was working on that. Ariel has been traumatized. She was in a state of undress when we found her, in a darkened room, with an unconscious man on the floor. She was at least threatened, possibly assaulted."
A flash of anger passed over Peri's face, replaced by concern, then her mask of professional objectivity appeared, and she indicated that Sam should accompany her.
"Does she know you're her mother?" he asked, "or that Merton is her father?"
Peri stopped dead in her tracks and took a deep breath, then looked down at the ground. Seeing an empty room near them she gestured to Sam to follow her into it and addressed the AI to set the privacy levels at maximum. Carefully, she sat down on a chair and waited for Sam to sit before she spoke.
"What makes you say that?"
"I was a counsellor before I was the Falcon," he said. "It was part of my job to read people's reactions to situations, feelings, and words. Merton was almost crying when Ariel went to him after we found her, especially with how haggard she looked. It was obvious something happened to her. You had much the same reaction just now, but she was more surprised at your reaction than she was at Merton's. That led me to believe her time working closely with him in the 1940s had already made them friends. You've been more hands off with her; I've heard her described as your protégé. It was just a guess, but you've pretty much confirmed it."
A sigh escaped from Peri's lips, and she looked at Sam with honesty, all of her professional masks gone.
"Being a historian is not for the faint hearted," she said. "We are bound by rules of engagement, not to allow ourselves to become emotionally involved with the subjects of our studies. Our training is intensive and exacting to keep ourselves in a position of detachment."
"But you're also human," said Sam. "Will and I talked a bit about it. He described the job as more of a vocation, putting aside relationships, families, and a normal life for a chance to be a first hand witness to history. He's an interesting man. If I met him in my time, I like to think we would be friends."
"He's one of our best, a prodigy, really," said Peri. "He was performing his two-year compulsory service obligation when one of our recruiters came across him. He completed his four-year degree in two years and was out in the field before he was 23. This was his first assignment as a resident historian." She realized she was delaying by the look Sam gave her. "Bucky Barnes in the period between 1938 and 1943 was an enigma. Smart, athletic, honourable, and seen as very desirable by the opposite sex. I was 22 when I was first assigned to observe him, and I was so sure I could get the data needed on him. Others had tried in the two years before I did and although they confirmed he was a ladies' man there were questions about his sexuality." Sam raised his eyebrows. "Many gay or bisexual men of the time went out of their way to be seen with many women, even engaging in sexual relations with them, so that they were not outed as sexual deviants according to the mores of the time. They sent a man to seduce him, and Bucky seemed to be more amused by it than appalled. It indicated a level of acceptance of alternate sexuality that wasn't typical of the times. Although our encounter was only one night I went back as a passive observer for another year, with no engagement whatsoever. I studied the women he dated, befriending them and questioning them on what drew him to them."
"So, his ladies' man claims are true?"
"Very much so, but not for the reasons you might think," replied Peri. "He enjoyed sex with a woman with an almost fanatical dedication to making their pleasure his priority. He also safeguarded their reputations, not bragging about his encounters, or treating them as damaged goods once they finished the relationship. I deduced that he wasn't trying to bed as many women as he could. Rather he was engaging with many women in a quest to find the one whose desires matched his, not only sexually, but emotionally, and intellectually."
"He is an interesting guy," noted Sam. "I often made fun of him for his continued preference for 1940s music, but I have to say, after going out to some of the clubs with him I understand his love of it now. The music was incredible and it's music that was part of my own heritage, but he knew more of it than I did. Even the racial thing. I get the feeling he was not like other men in Brooklyn."
"Neither Bucky nor Steve were," replied Peri. "They were not prejudiced against minorities or other marginalized communities of the time. Was it a product of their upbringing? Quite likely. Ariel reported conversations with Bucky's mother that revealed a very liberal attitude towards pre-marital sex. As it got closer to the time before Bucky went to basic training and even when he was on leave, they were openly spending the night together with his parent's knowledge and assistance on occasion."
"This was all information you were trying to learn about him," said Sam. "Why?"
"Because it all contributed to the type of man he was and still is," said Peri. "The man who fought single-handedly against the programming forced on him by HYDRA for 70 years. Their own documentation indicates the extent they had to go to overwrite his basic human decency, in making him the Winter Soldier. That type of character isn't easily overcome and even though those fascists did it repeatedly, it was never sustainable. The good man that he grew up to be on the streets of Brooklyn always returned, always threw off their programming, and struggled to break free. When Steve's words to him on the helicarrier were spoken that was the final part of the dam to fall. There was no going back to being the killer HYDRA wanted. His own will and determination decided that. He's heroic, Sam, in every sense of the word."
"So why your daughter?" He looked her in the eyes. She smiled slightly. "You had her deliberately, didn't you? You wanted the perfect woman for him and decided to create her just for him."
Peri's eyes were blazing, not from anger but from admiration. "You would make a fine historian, Sam Wilson," she said. "Your perceptive abilities astound me. You're right. The Guild chair of that time was sending all manner of women to him. Merton told Ariel there were only five but there were many, not just for him to seduce although that was the hope. It's easier to get secrets after a sexual encounter, as generations of women spies have found. He was not forthcoming about anything, almost as if he kept the real him hidden away. I had become friends with Merton, he was on leave after several historical assignments and I brought the subject of Bucky Barnes up, sharing my experiences and observations of him. It was Merton who asked if he seemed to have a preference for one type of woman over another. I had noticed a predisposition to redheads but as you might know, a true redhead is the rarest hair colour of all. Many women with red hair get it out of a bottle, or by henna. He knew the difference."
"You're a true redhead," said Sam.
"Yes, although I didn't present myself as one when I was assigned to him," she answered. "The chair at the time didn't see the connection. He also wanted an intellectual equal and again I was presented as a shallow woman. Good enough for one night in bed, but not anything to last. Merton joked that it was too bad I didn't have a daughter to train to observe him. He was 39 and I was 73 when he made that joke, but it stuck with me. What if I could have a child, raise her to be the ultimate historian? Someone that would take the challenge of observing Bucky Barnes but also, and this is where I deviated from standard procedure, allow her to fully engage with him, to know the real man behind the legend."
"You changed your body to bear a child," said Sam, "didn't you? That process to take years off a body, you underwent it."
She nodded. "I did," she admitted. "It was most unprofessional. I took a year's sabbatical, Merton agreed to be the sperm donor, as he does have the redhead gene and we underwent IVF. As a dedicated historian he knew he was giving up the chance to have a family so this was an opportunity for him to have a child. We were discovered and both of us got into considerable trouble. After Ariel was born, he was sent to Montana as a resident historian in the year 1917; the area was considered a backwater at the time, so it was a demotion for someone ambitious like him. I was forced to give Ariel up and restore my body to my original age. I was also demoted to recording historian in the archives, located in New Jersey."
"Wait, you weren't allowed to raise your own daughter?" asked Sam. "That's a bit harsh, isn't it?"
"Yes, in the context of the time you're from," said Peri. "But Merton and I totally broke the rules of our guild. The chair at the time had figured out what all of my years of study were focussed on. He took it personally, as a challenge to his authority. He did allow me to choose Ariel's adoptive parent and I chose a friend, Skye Paxton. She was a historian who was on leave after contracting a strain of the plague during the Middle Ages. Her cure had worked but it made her leery of returning to the past anytime soon. Then when Ariel turned 16 something happened, something unforeseen by anyone."
Her face darkened and she stood up to face the window, walking over to it and looking outside. Sam joined her and looked in the direction she was looking towards. At first, he didn't see it then he noticed it, a tall, slender spire about a mile away.
"What is that?" he asked.
"A memorial," she said. "The darkest day of the Historians Guild, when we were attacked by a descendent group of HYDRA. At that time, they called themselves the Reapers, in that they were reaping what we sowed for them. They destroyed the facility and everyone in it, or so we thought at the time." She turned to him. "Would you like to go see it?"
Sam nodded and the two of them left the room. At a doorway to the outside Peri called for a transport. This one had a human driver and she greeted the woman, directing her to take them to the memorial. As they got closer Sam admired the simplicity of the spire, made of a metallic substance that gleamed in the sunlight. It reached up into the sky, like it was reaching to the heavens. Around its base, much like other similar monuments were raised monolithic blocks covered in names. The driver followed discreetly at a distance behind them once they left the vehicle, as Peri and Sam approached the memorial where people were searching for names, taking photographs or even rubbings of the engraved list of what he presumed were the casualties. They stopped at one particular monolith and Peri pointed to a name, Skye Paxton.
"Ariel's adoptive mother?" he asked. "Bucky mentioned that Ariel said her birth mother died and that it was part of the trauma that formed her personality."
"Yes," replied Peri. "It did traumatize Ariel. We just changed the story slightly to fit Ariel Black from Montana. With marriage not possible we had to have a reason why she wouldn't marry Bucky, so we instructed Ariel and Merton to say her mother died when she was a child. Skye was thought to have perished in the destruction, along with a half dozen other people whose names are on here." He looked at her questioningly. "Time portals are very delicate wormholes. They can be affected by any manner of things, solar eruptions, EMPs, and shockwaves from demolition. Skye, with a small group were working in the portal room, calibrating it for a new assignment. When the building was attacked it went into lockdown mode, so the only way out was through the portal. They can't go forward into a time that hasn't yet existed for them; they can only go back. So, six of the seven people in that room went back a year in time or so it was thought. Instead, they were scattered, their portals disturbed by the attack. Skye was one of them. She ended up in Albany, 1928. What was more, the portal changed her appearance to that of a younger woman. We're still not sure how that happened. Without knowing where they all ended up, we didn't know where to look. We were also shut out from all of our historians out in the field. They couldn't contact us. It took a year just to rebuild the damaged apparatus and start to track where the missing six went. The seventh person left a recording of what happened. That's the only way we knew. I took Ariel in as my ward when she was 16 and she lived with me until she went to college."
"So, Skye is alive?" asked Sam, not sure where this was going.
"Yes, she is but she chose to stay in the past because she fell in love," said Peri. "She fell in love with a remarkable man, a man known to Bucky, after she managed to get to Brooklyn, knowing that Merton was there and would be able to help her. Much of what we do know about Bucky's early years came from her and Merton. They both became important to him, at arm's length. We couldn't remove her without removing that influence from him and we received a notice from the future chair saying that she had to stay to keep her husband's timeline intact. Ariel doesn't know, even though she met and worked with the woman in the 1940s."
The shock of that revelation made Sam gasp and several people nearby looked at him with concern. The driver of their transport came forward, but Peri waved her back and took Sam's arm, walking away from the memorial to a quiet meditation space. For some time, they sat there and then Peri saw some children approach. The woman with them, presumably their mother took them to the spot that Peri and Sam had vacated. Together, they placed a piece of paper over a section and used a crayon to rub over the engraving, transferring the name onto the paper. The boy read the name out loud, Skye Paxton, then asked his mother what she was like.
"Brave," said the woman. "She didn't leave her post but kept her wits about her as she helped the others to safety in a portal. Because of her six people were able to get to another time and wait for rescue. Then she left a message for the new chair of the guild saying what she had done. Before the building collapsed around her, she kept the message capsule protected until they found her remains two months later. Because of her efforts, people lived."
"You lied about her," said Sam, looking sharply at Peri.
"We switched her name with the person who actually stayed and sacrificed themself," she replied. "If the Reapers knew Skye survived, they would have sought her out and killed her. To almost everyone, except a select few, Skye Paxton died in the Reapers' attack on the Historians Guild."
The amount of information that Peri just gave Sam was almost overwhelming. In addition to the briefing he received when he arrived, just days ago by the calendar in this future timeline, he had been given a lot of future information. But why? Why was Peri entrusting him with all of it? It didn't make sense, unless it actually happened that he was allowed in on the secret. He looked at Peri, noticing an almost sad smile on her face.
"Why tell me?" he asked. "I'm not a historian. I belong in the past. Why give me future information?"
"Ariel was conceived just for this assignment but when the Reapers destroyed the guild headquarters seven years ago it was done to interfere with it and as retaliation," she said. "Our own operatives found earlier that they had acquired my research and created their own version of Ariel."
"That May Weatherly?" he asked.
"No, she was a replacement that they recruited from our own training program," said Peri, hesitating for a moment. "The original candidate was Lowell Pierce Mason's daughter, a true believer." She breathed heavily for a moment then looked steadily at Sam. "I gave the order for her to be liquidated. It was done to look like an accident, but Mason knew I was behind it. He organized the attack, although he hid his involvement in it very well. Then he began flooding 1940 with his operatives, and they did some recruiting of their own in that time. The bomb at the World's Fair, the fight at the fireworks, the man at the beach, the men at the World's Fair, who mistook Rebecca Barnes, a 10-year-old girl for a 23-year-old woman. Idiots. Then the attack on you ..."
"HYDRA," he said. "You were drawing them out, using Ariel as bait. Your own daughter."
"I'm not a robot, Sam," she said. "I feel emotions. I love my daughter, even though I've never said that to her since she was a newborn in my arms. When I gave her up, I agreed because I thought it would keep her safe, and I fully intended to keep her out of the Historians Guild. But when they destroyed the headquarters and then I learned Mason was going ahead with plans to impregnate a woman with Bucky's child I couldn't let it happen so as the new chair I reinstated the assignment, and I made sure Ariel knew her task inside and out. She was to be Bucky's lover and if she could keep him occupied, they wouldn't be able to send someone else in to seduce him. Then they took Ariel right from under our noses and used the doppelgänger. If they were successful, they would change all of history from World War II on." She sighed in frustration. He said nothing but continued to look at her as if she was from another planet. "You can judge me all you want. I plan to tell her everything but she's passionate and may walk out on me and on Merton because he knows much of it, not all of it. If she does turn her back on us, I need someone she respects to tell her the rest. She deserves that much for what I've put her through."
The old woman stood up then and began walking back to the transport vehicle. Sam caught up with her and offered her his arm. Smiling slightly, she took it, grateful for the support as she was feeling much older than her middle aged 97 years. Nothing more was said between them on the walk to vehicle or on the trip back to the guild headquarters, but he understood now why she told him. Guilt had a large part to do with it, he was sure of that. For a future that didn't seem to have much in the way of religion perhaps he had just assumed the role of confessor so she could unload her burden onto someone reasonably objective. Surprisingly, he felt alright about that. HYDRA, the Reapers, Phoenix, and whatever other name they had called themselves over the years made people desperate and her desperation had ruled her life for many years.