Thanks so much for the follows and favorites. I'm so happy to know people are reading this. This chapter was a daunting one, trying to stay true to the movie scenes (these were two of my favorite scenes from the movie). I felt like I ran a marathon by the time I was done with this chapter, lol.
Chapter 7
Elia rolled over. The firm cot—more of a bench with a thin mat on it—wasn't comfortable. Or, at least she didn't think it was. It was hard to remember what she had thought of it when she was first brought here. Now she lived in a constant state of being drugged and it was hard to tell if the pain came from trying to sleep on the cot, or from the injections.
She let the concrete block wall in front of her face blur. How long had she been here? There were…she squinted, fighting against the haze that was her constant battle…two? three? weeks when she had first been captured that she had been used to access…Her mind trailed off again and she struggled to recapture the thought. Weeks of being sedated and dragged on missions. Then weeks of being drugged, her mind invaded. Months? Had she been here months?
Focus, she commanded herself. She wasn't going to let them take over her mind completely. She fought through blurred images, hazy memories, back to the beginning. The first days here. They had brought her along to kill her after they had killed their target.
No, that wasn't right. Not 'they'. The Soldier.
Her fingers fumbled for the utilitarian blanket. She drew it up over her shoulders, gripping as much as medicated muscles would allow.
The Soldier. He was almost terrifying. Almost. Elia could see those hard eyes, staring straight at her. But then…
She squinted, trying to grasp at the memory that was too fleeting. She had seen him, when he wasn't focused on killing. Focused on a target. And those times…he was almost blank.
Elia gripped the blanket tighter. She could see something. Something in the Soldier. In the way the others treated him.
Her mind spun and the cinder blocks swam in front of her eyes. She struggled to get her thoughts back. The Soldier…he… She squeezed her eyes shut, closing out the extra senses that were draining her focus. He was…there was something…a victim. She finally gripped onto the word that was spinning away from her, just out of reach.
A victim. There was something that had her convinced the Soldier was…wasn't…wasn't…was…
She couldn't fight for the thoughts anymore. She shook her head slightly, but she couldn't get a coherent thought back. She let the wisp of memories evaporate, too exhausted to grab for them anymore.
She sank into the thin mattress and relished the sleep that would give her a reprieve. At least until tomorrow.
#
Elia woke, her hair in her face, her throat scratchy, her bones aching. But at least she had slept. The sedative they gave her daily was starting to wear off. She hoped they planned to give her more soon.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. They were running.
She stumbled from her cot and went to the doorway. She opened her cell door and gripped the doorframe.
Two agents came hurrying down the hall, carrying large boxes. Another came, pushing a cart full of supplies.
Elia ducked back into her cell.
She kept the door open. The steady flow of traffic past her door continued. Everyone was focused, urgency driving every movement. She listened for some hint of what was happening.
She saw the looks on the agents' faces, but they didn't mean anything. Just focused determination, a task that looked like it was taking the entire compound to complete.
Rumlow came to her door. Elia stumbled back. She had been so focused on the commotion down the hall, she hadn't heard him approach. Or it was the drugs dulling senses.
"She goes to the new location," Rumlow said.
Elia hadn't noticed the man next to him. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping she could gain better control of her senses. Both men blurred before her.
The man gripped her arm.
"I'm getting the strike team prepped. We found the targets," Rumlow said to the man with the iron grip on her arm. "Get her there, keep her alert enough for triage and whatever else we need after the asset and the team engage."
Elia tried to understand anything of what he was saying. But then he was walking away, the opposite direction, and she was being pulled down the hall to the garage.
#
"They have Sitwell," Rumlow briefed the strike team. "We're tracking them. The asset will extricate him."
The Soldier knew that meant dead or alive. They couldn't risk Sitwell being taken by S.H.I.E.L.D. and revealing anything he knew.
"The targets are these two," Rumlow said, gesturing toward a screen, displaying two photographs. "S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Or they were."
The Soldier dispassionately eyed the targets. A blond man and red haired woman.
"These two need to be eliminated," Rumlow said. He looked at the Soldier. "Anything less is a failure."
The Soldier nodded slightly.
Rumlow switched the screen over to a map of the city, a tracker moving along the streets. The Soldier studied the route they had taken, looking to see where they could be headed, taking in landmarks, extraction points, lines of sight.
"Gear up," Rumlow said.
The Soldier moved with the strike team from the briefing room to the armory.
The other men spoke minimally, none of them spoke to him. This team was mostly Soviet. Some of them, the more experienced ones, had been in Siberia with him, a few years before. But that didn't make them teammates. He was nothing more than a weapon to be used. He didn't care. A weapon could get the job done.
The armory was attached to a gun range on one side and the gym on the other. Each of the men went through the stock of rifles, pistols, automatic weapons. The Soldier started with the wall of knives. He chose the ones he knew were well balanced, checking each blade for sharpness before stowing it on his dark uniform. Then he turned to the guns. A semi automatic strapped to his back and two rifles to carry to the vehicle.
"Gotovyy?" the leader of the strike team asked.
He was ready. The Soldier gave a single nod. "Gotov podchinit'sya." Ready to comply. The words were familiar. When nothing else was familiar, those words always brought him back to what he was trained for. What he had been created to do.
Comply.
He moved with the team through the tunnels toward the garage.
"The rendezvous point will be the new location. Pierce wants us closer to S.H.I.E.L.D. for the next phase," Rumlow said.
The Soldier had received the coordinates of their new location along with everyone else. He had seen the organized frenzy of moving supplies and documents.
He got into the back seat of the SUV. The new location blended with the targets he was focused on, the weapons he was mentally cataloguing, what he needed to accomplish.
He went into his mental fortress during the drive. Somewhere nothing else could break in unless he let it. It was a way of passing the time without any static frying through his brain. He could avoid any headache that way.
"Tseli v pole zreniya," the team leader said. The targets were in sight. It was what the Soldier had been waiting to hear.
He focused his gaze, looking at the car they were bearing down on.
It was an unassuming sedan. No hint that it was carrying fugitives and a captive Hydra agent down the beltway.
The Soldier rolled down his window. The dark SUV didn't slow as he climbed out, holding to the side of the vehicle. When they were close enough to the sedan, he launched himself onto the roof, smashing out the back window as soon as he landed. In a single motion, he pulled Sitwell from the backseat and flung him out, over the several lanes of traffic and off the bridge.
One threat neutralized. He could only hope Sitwell hadn't disclosed any sensitive information yet. His team opened fire on the car. He didn't expect it to be that easy and when the car slammed to a stop, throwing him from the roof, he adapted, easily rolling onto the asphalt and digging titanium fingers into the road. His fingers screeched as they dragged down the roadway, slowing the momentum that would have had him rolling down the road.
When he stopped, he released the road, his arm adjusting and recalibrating after the torque. He stood, gaze on the occupants of the car. His targets. His mission.
Traffic, not quite yet to rush hour, flowed around him and the stopped car. The three targets in the car stared at him. Their expressions were somewhere between stunned horror and shock. The Soldier waited.
With a shattering of glass and tearing of metal, the Hydra SUV rammed the back of the sedan. The Soldier held his ground until the bumper was a whisper from his legs and jumped, flipping onto the roof of the car.
The man behind the wheel was clearly still fighting as if they had a chance, brakes squealing and sparks flying from beneath the car. The Soldier would take away his control—little that was left. He punched through the windshield, not caring if the shower of glass sliced any of the occupants—even hoping it would. Traitors and enemies didn't deserve mercy.
He wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel and tore it free, flinging it aside, after the direction he had thrown Sitwell.
One of the occupants opened fire and the Soldier leaped away from the bullets, onto the hood of the Hydra SUV, still propelling the car along until the car broke free.
The Soldier braced himself for impact when the engine beneath him revved, roaring toward the car. It took one solid slam for the smaller car to lose control.
He watched as the car went airborne, one door flying off and then three forms, gripped together flew free until they landed with a hard skid across the lanes of traffic, debris from the wrecked car scattering in every direction.
Finally. A clear shot.
While the targets got to their feet, one of the strike team handed the Soldier the largest rifle. The Soldier took it, the weight and shape comfortable in his hands. In a world where nothing was familiar, this was.
He looked at the man behind the shield. The man who was the primary target.
He lifted the rifle without hesitation, not giving the target time to react other than to shove the female target out of the way and crouch behind the shield.
The shield was no match for the power of the bullet. It launched the man backwards and off the opposite side of the overpass that Sitwell had ended up on.
The strike team laid cover fire from his flanks as they moved toward the target still on the bridge. He waited until she rose from behind a car to raise his gun, take aim, and fire at her. She was fast. He could give her credit for that. The team chased her with imprecise fire, keeping her on the move. He took another shot, landing it on a car. Flames exploded from the car, covering her escape. He waited until he caught sight of her again. This time, he aimed for the car she took cover behind. When it exploded, she moved with the momentum of the blast and used it to launch off the overpass.
The Soldier needed something with more precision. He handed off his gun to a team member and took the assault rifle the man held. He scanned the road below him, looking for any movement, waiting for the best moment to squeeze the trigger. He was a sniper. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he knew he was a sniper. He could wait. He liked the height from his current vantage point. He finally lifted the rifle to sight it, but smaller caliber shots fired from below.
His head jerked back at a hit against his goggles.
He sank down quickly, his back to the concrete safety barrier of the bridge. He pulled his goggles off. Annoyance grew to anger. He shouldn't have been hit. He was trained—created—to take down these lesser targets.
He stood and rained down fire on her. He swept his bullets across the roadway, taking cover when she fired back, then back to merciless firing.
He was frustrated, his aim affected. He forced himself to take his finger from the trigger. He watched her run.
Pulling his emotions back under control, he spoke to the strike agent next to him.
"Ona moya. Nayti yevo." He would take her out. The team could find the other target.
Then he would end both of the targets.
#
Elia drew her lip between her teeth. She watched the video feed in front of her.
One of the strike team agents on the video feed said something in Russian. A man near the front of the room, watching the feed, pressed a button and answered.
They had brought her to an abandoned bank. Through the upstairs with empty teller stations, cardboard blocking out any light from the windows, and to this back room. A conference room where some board of trustees should be meeting, not a nefarious group dressed in black watching a live stream of a coordinated attack.
Elia hadn't realized who they were attacking at first. She and the rest of the medics had been shuttled to the back of the room to watch and wait for the injured to be brought to them.
She had watched the Soldier demolish a small car. The video was jerky, uneven, coming from what seemed to be a body cam. Occasionally the man at the front of the room would say something to one of the other men operating the electronics and the feed would change to something from a surveillance camera on the street.
She had flinched when the Soldier had taken fire, her heart lodged in her throat until she saw him remove his goggles. He was ok.
Then quiet discussion around her in the room as the Soldier tracked a woman in black. Elia didn't know who she was, but she hoped the Soldier failed.
Her breath wrapped around her throat, suffocating her, when the Soldier steadily followed the woman, firing a shot directly into the woman's shoulder. The woman hid behind a car. Without seeing her face, Elia could read the fear, bordering on controlled panic, in the woman's body language as she hid. But Elia could see her. Which mean the Soldier could.
The Soldier spoke quietly into his comms piece and the man with the radio pressed the button again. He gave what sounded like a kill order.
"No," Elia gasped out through the invisible noose choking her slowly.
One of the men next to her let out a curse and Elia looked at the new camera angle, one that looked like it was coming from above a traffic light.
A man ran, faster than Elia had ever seen someone run, across the street, past the abandoned cars, practically flying. The Soldier turned just in time to swing a heavy armed blow that the man blocked with a shield.
The shield.
Elia knew who the Soldier was fighting.
She had watched—with the rest of the world—when Captain America had been reintroduced to the nation after decades in the ice. 'America's Super Soldier'. There had been news specials, parades, dozens of events welcoming the original American hero home.
But while the rest of the world had cheered, patriotism reinvigorated, Elia hadn't been able to shake the sorrow that had lodged in her chest.
Whenever she had seen him on a television screen, her heart broke for him. Behind the dutiful smile, and not entirely hidden in the shadow of billowing flags, there was something in his eyes, or a small muscle twitch at the corner of his mouth, that convinced her he wasn't as thrilled as those around him. He was grieving. Didn't anyone realize he had lost everyone? Every person he had known had to be dead or dying by now. And they just trotted him out like a long lost trophy.
Elia had to start turning off the television when his face came on, the grief she was sure she saw there burrowing too deeply into her own heart for her to bear it.
And that was who these men were trying to kill. Who the Soldier was trying to kill.
"No," she said again, emotion building and adding volume to the word. She flinched with every blow the Soldier landed, recoiled when he took possession of the shield and threw it hard enough to imbed in the back of a van.
But when he pulled a knife, deftly spinning it with agile fingers, she couldn't stop herself. She lurched forward, as if she could get to the screen and stop him. She had seen him practice with those knives. She knew how brutal he was.
"He can't—you can't—" Elia stammered out, her heart racing and chopping up her words. She fought for a full thought. Panic warred with the drugs in her system. "You can't do this!" She pushed past one of the medics near her. She almost tripped over her own feet getting to the front of the room.
"NO!" she finally got control of her voice, the scream ripping from her as the men on the screen fought viciously. "You can't do this! You can't hurt him! Don't kill him!" They couldn't kill Captain America.
"Subdue her," the man in charge said, glancing at her, then back to the screen.
A sharp blow snapped her head back. Blackness dropped over her vision. Hands wrapped around her arms, finding the bruises that were there from the earlier grip on them. But the pain only blended with the constant ache of her bones.
Elia shook her head slightly, her jaw already aching fiercely, but her vision cleared.
Captain America threw the Soldier, the Soldier rolled. His mask fell behind him on the ground.
Elia looked for any hint that he might show mercy. That he might take Captain America alive.
Captain America's arms fell to his sides. His fighting posture fell away and he stood. Even on the grainy video from a traffic camera, his confusion, bewilderment, was obvious. She didn't understand the curses that came from the men at the front of the room. Something was wrong with Captain America seeing the Soldier without his mask. But then the Soldier was drawing his gun.
Then it was explosions and a man with wings flying in, the video feed was lost.
When they had pulled up a new feed, strike agents surrounded Captain America and the two others with him. Elia didn't see the Soldier anywhere. Relief flowed through her that the Soldier hadn't succeeded. But then she saw. It was Rumlow. Guns were trained on Captain America. Rumlow was barking orders.
Rumlow wasn't a good guy. That wasn't the side that should be winning.
The feed cut out.
"Get to the procedure room," the man near the screen said. The medics started moving. Elia kept staring at the blank screen, her mind not making sense of what she had just seen. Captain America had lost.
"The procedure room," he snapped again. This time hands shoved Elia between her shoulder blades, knocking her breath from her. Elia moved because she didn't know what else to do. She was too stunned by the sight of Captain America, on his knees surrendering. Surrendering to men she knew weren't on the right side.
Her jaw ached from the blow she had just taken. She lifted a hand to probe at the welt she felt forming there and quickly withdrew. It was too tender to touch.
The procedure room in this new location was behind a brass grate. And then another one. Elia took in the drawers lining the wall, safety deposit boxes. This room was secure, but it was anything but safe.
Several techs in white shirts filed in behind her. One of them set a tray of tools on a table and began organizing them.
Elia hadn't been entirely sure of where this new fortress was, but she had recognized the streets of DC that the Soldier had been fighting on, and the way the men around her were hurrying, she assumed that meant the fight had been nearby.
"Out of the way," one of the techs snapped at her. Elia took a couple steps back.
She looked around at the bench she had been seated on for injections in the compound. It was here now. The chair with the spider arms looming over it that she had seen the Soldier seated in for work on his arm. Where she had sutured him more than once.
She had just seen him try to kill Captain America. And now he was coming here.
She had hazy memories of him killing others. People that she knew.
He was a killer.
The doors slid open and she braced herself to see him, his eyes dark, his dark leather uniform adding to his bulk.
But the soldier who walked through the door wasn't that man.
He didn't have his mask, or the goggles. His eyes weren't smudged with black. One of the strike team members pushed him toward the chair. This soldier let them shove him into the seat. He didn't respond when they said something to him in Russian.
Elia tried to get her vision to clear, sure the drugs that lived in her system were messing with what she saw.
When the Soldier didn't respond, the handler yanked at the straps on the leather vest and roughly removed it, tossing it aside. Elia's eyes immediately when to the scars along his prosthetic arm. But then back to him. He sat in the chair. He wasn't blank. He looked…lost.
Elia shouldn't feel sympathy for him. Not after what he had done. What he had tried to do.
But his eyes were focused on something that wasn't in the room. When the first tech approached his arm, the Soldier quickly turned to look at his arm, his eyes moving like someone was talking to him.
His hair was damp with sweat, hanging in his face, but that wasn't what he saw.
This wasn't a killer. Whoever he was, he wasn't the killer that had just faced off against Captain America.
Nothing had made sense since she had been taken hostage and brought to be used by these men.
She watched the Soldier's eyes moving, looking for something she was sure wasn't really there. His chest started moving, every breath looking like it was something he had to fight for.
He whipped his head around, his eyes growing wild. He moved his head, listening intently to whatever he was hearing that no one else did.
No one spoke to him. No one asked if he was alright. One of the techs moved closer, bending over the soldering work he was doing on the electronics of the Soldier's metal arm. Elia watched the Soldier retreat farther and farther into his mind. His expression changing from lost to frustrated. The tech shifted slightly to better tend the arm.
The explosion came without warning. The Soldier launched himself upright in the chair, winding an arm back and leveling the tech with one hit.
Elia bit back a scream when tech slid across the floor. Guns she hadn't registered were cocked with steady clicks, raised and trained on the Soldier.
The Soldier didn't move. He stayed seated in the chair, holding his fighting posture. But it wasn't aggression. The line of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. It was defense. He was trying to protect himself.
"Move," one of the handlers ordered, jabbing Elia with bony fingers.
Elia forced her attention away from the Soldier and to the man moving her from the room. He steered her roughly toward the door, keeping behind the guns trained on the Soldier.
He kept pushing her along until she was in a hallway outside of both layers of security from the procedure room.
She watched as men hurried toward the room, doors sliding forward to admit more men with guns. Men positioned themselves outside the door, at guard. The techs were brought from the room.
No one spoke. Elia tried to see in the room every time the doors opened, but there was nothing to see, no sound came from within.
The sharp click of shoes on tiles approached.
The techs waiting outside the gates turned to the approaching director. Elia shrank back at the approach.
"Sir? He's—he's unstable," the tech spoke. "Erratic."
The director didn't look at any of them gathered in the hall, he kept going without acknowledging them.
The drugs that numbed emotion couldn't cover the ire that started simmering in her gut at the sight of that man striding past them. That man was the one who made the decisions. Anger churned, rising as she thought of all she had lost since being brought here. But then the doors slid shut behind him and she was left with nothing but frustration coursing through her and no relief for it.
The quiet conversation of the techs filtered over to her.
"He's practically an animal," one murmured.
"Keeping him out of cryo just endangers all of us."
Elia dropped her eyes when one of them glanced over his shoulder at her. "At least that one doesn't think for herself. I'd be the first one to stick her in cryo if we had to deal with another one like him."
Elia's hands curled into fists. Did they think she wanted to be here?
By the time the doors slid open again, the techs had stopped talking and Elia was shaking.
"Bring her in," a man's voice ordered.
Elia was ready for the shove against her back.
When she got into the room, she bit back a whimper. She took in the men, the guns. The director.
She winced with pain as she was handed off to Rumlow.
Rumlow.
He had just arrested Captain America.
She drew back when Rumlow took hold of her arm, but his iron hold wasn't letting her move anywhere.
She bit her lip to keep from crying.
"Fix him," Rumlow ordered, yanking her forward.
Elia stumbled a step before he stopped her. She lifted her eyes. She was directly in front of the Soldier.
He met her eyes. She held them. The two of them were being used. She didn't understand a lot of what was going on with this group or agency or whatever it was, but when she looked at him, she knew that much. They were nothing to these men. Nothing but a means to an end.
Relief flooded her when Rumlow let go of her and took a step back.
Elia swallowed hard, but she didn't stop to take stock of the confusing thoughts muddling her mind. She knew the men keeping her in line didn't have patience. She looked at the first aid supplies on a table, along with the equipment meant to repair electronics in his arm.
She focused on her assigned task. Washing scrapes, evaluating cuts, checking for gunshots or other wounds. She worked quickly.
She listened to his breathing, ready for any shift that would warn of him throwing her across the room. But his breathing slowed. His flesh nearly burned her fingers, but the clamminess eased.
She risked another look at him. This time his eyes were clear. Whatever he had been seeing and hearing wasn't there anymore. There was nothing there but loss.
His head dropped forward, breaking the contact.
Elia slowed her work, wanting to reassure him that whatever haunted him wasn't there. But then she was aware of the men around the perimeter of the room and knew that wasn't true.
When she finished taping down the last bandage, a hand curled around her arm again and yanked her back. Her feet knocked against the tray table, the loud clang bringing the Soldier's posture upright again. His jaw firmed as he stared at her and Rumlow.
"Watch," Rumlow said to her.
"Prep him," Director Pierce said shortly.
"But he's been out of cryofreeze for too long," a tech protested.
"Then wipe him and start over." There was no mercy in the director's voice. Elia started to shake.
Whatever was about to happen, the Soldier knew what it was. Elia watched him drop his eyes from her and the more familiar blank look came over his face.
The techs shoved him back against the chair, nothing in their touch to show they thought of him as anything but a machine to deal with.
A man shoved a mouth guard into the Soldier's mouth. The Soldier clenched it angrily between his teeth, clearly knowing what was about to happen.
Metal clamps snaked over his arms, pinning him to the chair with a rough jolt.
His entire chest heaved, every breath sucked in through the mouth guard, his entire body braced for whatever it was that was coming.
The entire chair buzzed to life, the arachnid arms coming down, electricity sparking and snapping from plates before wrapping his head between the layer of metal, one eye obscured.
"No," Elia whispered. She didn't know what this was, but she didn't want to watch. She didn't want to see what these—these monsters were about to do.
He screamed.
Elia bit her lips, clenched her fists.
He screamed again. And again. Tears welled in her eyes. She was powerless to help.
The director strode away without a backward glance, Rumlow and a guard going with him.
Elia wanted to close her eyes, but forced herself to stay there. She wouldn't back away from his pain, ignore it.
#