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Chapter 4
"Let's go," Rumlow said.
Elia blinked at the words. That's what the soldier had said before he had practically carried her into Senator Marks' home. That much she remembered. There wasn't much else she remembered since then. Just getting pulled into the procedure room and injected nearly daily. Everything before that and beyond that was just…blurry.
Impatience crossed Rumlow's face. He gripped her arm and pulled her along.
Elia went with him without a fight. There wasn't much to fight against. She wasn't being taken out of the facility anymore. She was just injected. She had no idea what they were doing, but there was some tenuous relief that spread through her chest when she realized they didn't seem intent on bringing her along on any more murders.
And it wasn't all that unpleasant to not have to be alert and thinking while she was being held against her will. At least it helped her forget for a little while what she had seen.
She took the seat on the far side of the room. Rumlow went to the cabinet and prepped a syringe.
"Where's Pierce?" one of the other agents in the room asked.
"S.H.I.E.L.D." Rumlow said.
"When are you heading back over there?" the agent asked.
"After this," Rumlow answered with a jerk of his chin toward Elia.
"I wouldn't mind being assigned over at the Triskelion," the agent said. "My wife sure wouldn't mind. Closer to home." He headed toward the door.
Rumlow didn't respond. He approached Elia, syringe in hand.
She lowered her head and waited for the familiar sting.
"Your wife's an idiot," Rumlow muttered under his breath.
Elia glanced at him. He was focused on injecting the solution into her arm. But Elia saw the look on his face.
He had feelings for that agent's wife. He was jealous.
The solution spread through her deltoid, burning its way through her muscle until it burned away any conscious awareness in her mind.
#
One week later
Something was changing.
Elia sat on the cot in her cell. Her head ached. Not so much ached as it buzzed. Her mind hummed. When whatever they last injected her with had started to wear off, it left a hive of bees vibrating in her head. It almost made her want them to inject her again.
She watched as another agent hurried down the hallway. Then two more.
She didn't see the metal armed soldier. She hadn't seen him for two days. She wondered if the controlled panic outside her door had anything to do with him being gone.
Her vision blurred. Had they injected her yesterday? Or was it two days ago? The way her thoughts were jumbled, tumbling around without gravity, made her think it had been more than just a day.
She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, her vision was clearer. She pushed herself off her cot and slowly approached the door.
More footsteps came hurrying down the hall and she ducked back instinctively. That agent went by without a glance into her cell.
Elia ventured to the doorway. She didn't see anyone immediately. She stepped out into the hall.
She started in the direction of the procedure room. She didn't know what else was housed in that wing, but she did know that most of the higher ups congregated down there.
She passed one of the agents who had been with on the mission to kill Senator Marks. Her heart stuttered, but he walked by without a glance toward her.
"Fury needs to be taken out," a deep voice said. "Pierce is managing S.H.I.E.L.D. He won't be here. Rumlow is organizing the operation, but he'll have to report back to S.H.I.E.L.D soon."
Elia caught the conversation as she went past the doorway. She didn't know who Fury was. And she didn't understand how Pierce could be at S.H.I.E.L.D when he was also running this organization. Whatever this organization was.
The next words trailed after her as she kept going down the hall. "Rumlow wants the girl mined. Find out what she knows about the Security Council and Congress, make sure we can get them on our side when Fury is taken out."
A strong grip wrapped around her arm.
"Time to get to work," an agent said.
Elia sucked a breath in as his grip tightened. He pulled her past the room where the men were talking and pushed her ahead of him into the procedure room.
There was already an agent there with a needle in hand, waiting for her.
Elia didn't fight. There was no point. She would lose. She would only end up bruised. And the injection would be an escape from the mixture of horror and boredom that captivity was. And maybe it would slow the painful vibration in her brain.
The door to the procedure room slid open. The Soldier strode in. He went to the chair in the center of the room and sat, placing his metal arm out.
The man in a white shirt who had come in with him carefully took a seat on a rolling stool near him, opening a case of tools.
The technician studied the arm, selecting a small screwdriver to begin with. She heard him say something about making a small adjustment before the Soldier went to his mission.
Before the injection seared its way through her, she saw the Soldier look at her, meet her eyes. His blue eyes watched her intently until the haze took over and she let her head fall forward, finally granted another reprieve from her new reality.
#
His only thought was the mission. Distractions didn't exist. Nothing existed in his world besides the mission. The dark haired woman, being injected in the procedure room near the chair he sat in to get his arm adjusted, wasn't even a distraction. She was just another person at the facility who was in his periphery.
She was the only other person at the facility who was having her mind worked over, though.
He was silent on the drive into DC from the compound in the isolated woods of northern Virginia. Pierce had explained the importance of the mission. What they would be accomplishing. That was what mattered. He was ready. He wanted this battle.
The SUV parked in a back alley at the planned location in DC. He made his way towards where they would take down Fury
He stayed in the shadow between buildings, waiting for the target to be directed his way.
There had been a second world war to rival the first Great War. Hitler's rise to power, a force trying to dominate Europe, then spreading to the US through Pearl Harbor. Anything beyond the general overview of history was fuzzy. He had followed a calling, gone into battle. He didn't remember the calling. He didn't even remember the battles. Just that he had fought. And now he had been in battle for years. Decades. The enemy was S.H.I.E.L.D. Their unrelenting determination to cause upset and unrest worldwide at direct odds with Hydra's mission to bring stability and order.
The Winter Soldier wasn't going to allow another world war. He would bring order to the chaos. Protect the world from people like Nick Fury.
The sound of sirens and screeching tires reached his ears.
The agents, disguised as police officers, would be bringing Fury this way.
The Winter Soldier waited until the sounds drew closer, then stepped out from between the buildings, striding into the street. Ready to meet Fury head on. Ready to accomplish this mission.
He stood, ready, powerful gun in a secure grip as the black SUV, battered with shattered windows, drove directly toward him. The soldier didn't flinch. He stood, ready, waiting.
The oversized black vehicle came, riddled with bullet holes, weaving through the regular traffic. He waited. When it was close enough, he lifted his gun, sighted. He fired.
The grenade disc slid under the vehicle and attached to the undercarriage. The Soldier watched as it detonated, no reaction besides grim satisfaction when it launched the SUV into the air and flipped it.
He slid to the side to avoid the vehicle careening through the air to land where he had stood, sliding on its roof down the street, black plumes of smoke obscuring his view. Shrapnel littered the ground around him. He could feel where some dug into his flesh, but that wasn't a priority right now.
He started striding toward the vehicle. Assuming the crash had killed the target would be foolish. He wanted to see Fury dead. Helpless and unable to do more damage.
He used his titanium arm to tear the door off, toss it aside, anger making his movements sharper. Anger at this man who insisted on thwarting Hydra's attempts to secure the world.
He ducked down to look in the missing window, above the crumpled roof.
Fury was gone.
#
"…casualties…"
"…major injuries…every medic needs to be…"
"…inbound to headquarters…less than ten minutes…"
Elia heard the words swirling around her, but she didn't care. Whatever they injected her with stopped her from caring. It was a relief to not wonder where she was or who they were. Not to care.
Someone gripped her arm. It hurt. But not something she cared about.
A sharp jab in her arm had her looking at the syringe, the needle plunged into her muscle through her t-shirt. This syringe was filled with something green. Not what they usually gave her. This one didn't burn. It was sharp. A sharp, knifing pain in her arm, running down to her fingers.
Elia blinked, her head dropping forward. But then the groggy feeling started to sear away. She winced as the sharp pain pierced her head, her temples starting to throb. She blinked again, her vision blurring behind the pain.
The needle wasn't in her arm anymore, but her arm still radiated pain. She risked moving it anyway, needing to push her hands to her temples.
"Move," came the directive from the man who had held the needle.
Elia tried to get to her feet, but they were still disconnected from her. She stumbled when he hauled her to her feet, but he didn't slow.
"Is she clear?"
"The antidote is in. She'll be useful in a minute."
Elia didn't understand what they were saying, but the groggy detachment had faded under the pain. She hurt. Everywhere.
Her knees buckled, but the man didn't let her fall. He just kept going, dragging her along to another room.
"Where's the asset?" he asked.
"He's inbound. Less than a ten minutes out."
"And Pierce?" her escort asked, not seeming to notice she was nearly dangling by her arm from his tight hold.
"He has to deal with the Council. He said to make sure the asset is assessed. Get her ready for him."
The asset. She recognized the term. It was how they referred to the Soldier.
She was shoved toward the shelf with supplies.
"Get ready," the man ordered her. "The strike team has injuries. We need every medic ready."
Elia didn't bother correcting him that she wasn't a medic. She was a nurse. A pediatric nurse. Or she had been. Outside these walls. Weeks ago. A lifetime away. Now she was whatever they needed her to be.
Voices sounded from the corridor. Someone gave directions. Another yelled out orders.
The vise grip of pain was finally loosening on her head. Her arms were functioning again. But the confusion lingered. Elia fought to focus.
The first man came in, holding a barely conscious strike team member upright.
"Over there," someone said.
The injured man was deposited on the floor and a medic went to him.
Another man came in, this one holding an arm that hung at an awkward angle. Three men with lacerations.
Elia watched each one. Each one was tended by someone who shoved her aside to get supplies and hurry back to get to work. Elia stood, frozen in place. She didn't know what she was supposed to do.
"Ty, idi rabotya," a man spat at her.
Elia flinched back, looking up at his dark face. Both his dark faces. She closed her eyes, opened them again, trying to clear her vision. His faces melded together into a single face. She strained her eyes to keep it like that.
"Ty tupoy?" he snapped.
Elia had heard some of the men speak what sounded like Russian. Some spoke English. Some spoke both. But she only understood English. Not Russian or whatever language this man was getting angry in.
The room was filled with groans from injured men. Urgent conversation among the men who weren't injured and were tending them. More men had been brought in. The smell of blood filled the air. Blood and smoke.
The man gave her a solid shove and Elia went to the ground, landing on knees that still hurt from the antidote spreading through her.
She landed alongside a man who was bleeding from a head wound.
A metal box clattered to the ground, tossed down next to her. Elia looked at it. A first aid kit.
She looked up at the man who had shoved her.
"Idi rabotya!" he said again, this time with a boot to her side.
Elia's breath left her with a wheeze at the solid hit to her ribs. But now she understood what he wanted.
She opened the kit, struggling to get a breath. The supplies swam in front of her eyes. She grit her teeth.
Gloves. She saw gloves and took those out first, pulling them on.
She turned her attention to the man she was kneeling next to.
His head lolled back against the wall and he opened one eye to look at her, before letting it fall closed again.
Elia wished her thoughts would come faster. They were still sluggish. She struggled to focus, figure out what needed to be done.
She started by tearing open a package of gauze and pulling out a bottle of saline, soaking the gauze. She got closer to the man and started cleaning the worst of his wounds.
He sucked in a breath.
"Sorry," Elia whispered. She kept working. The men around her spoke of a mission gone wrong. Someone named Fury. He had fought back, something they had expected, but they hadn't expected the level of damage they had sustained. And he had gotten away. None of it made sense. At least, not the way the words drifted around her and spun with the pain in her head. Had the Soldier been with them? She had seen him earlier, hadn't she? When she was being shot with the regular injection they gave her.
She finished applying butterfly strips to the cuts on the man's face and took off her gloves, putting them aside with a growing pile of debris from the other medics. She picked up her first aid box and scanned the room. Another man was holding a piece of cloth to a wound in his shoulder. Blood soaked the cloth and ran down his arm.
Elia went to him. The men around her talked about the asset. The Soldier. She looked around the room again. She didn't see the Soldier.
She put a pressure dressing on the man's shoulder. He was going to need more than she could do for him.
Another medic came and looked at what she had done. He nodded to Elia and helped the man to his feet.
Someone shoved Elia toward another injured man. She obediently looked over his injuries and pulled on a clean pair of gloves. She scanned the room again. The men weren't talking about the Soldier anymore. She didn't see the Soldier. Hadn't they said he was on his way in?
She shook her head slightly, trying to shake loose stray thoughts and get her focus back on the task in front of her. She looked at the shrapnel embedded in this injured man's face and arm. She pulled a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit and started to work.
She was nearly done, the worst of the shrapnel cleaned up and finishing bandaging him when she heard the shift in the conversation around her.
He came into the room. Striding in with that assured way he had. Like he never had to hesitate for anything.
Elia instinctively looked him over for injuries. He had dark goggles on his eyes, a mask over his lower face. It made her shrink back even though he was nowhere near her.
He took off the goggles, pulled off the mask. He looked at her.
Elia didn't understand the breath that escaped when she saw him in one piece. He was a murderer. But a familiar face. The only consistency in this place.
He glanced over the men being treated. His face flickered slightly at their pain, then it was blank again. No, not blank. Angry. His jaw was tight, his eyes hard.
Elia swallowed hard. She didn't want to get near him when he looked like that.
"Soldat," one of the handlers said.
The Soldier looked at him.
The handler said something in what sounded like Russian. The Soldier looked at Elia again.
His eyes were blue. The thought came from nowhere. But blue eyes didn't match the rest of him. He was darkness and anger and fight. Blue eyes were…human.
More Russian instructions and the Soldier moved. He sat down. Waiting.
The handler said something to Elia in Russian.
The Soldier seemed to move easily between the two languages. The handler spoke to her more sharply. Elia shook her head slightly, but that brought the piercing pain back to her head. One arm moved without conscious thought, protecting her ribs against another blow. Whatever they had given her had taken away the dissociating buzz and made her hurt. She didn't like it.
"Ochisit' yego ot oskolkov," the handler snapped again.
"Clean the shrapnel," the Soldier said. He looked straight ahead. Waiting.
"Right. Ok," Elia nodded. With shaking hands, she pulled her first aid box toward her and straightened again. She stood in front of the Soldier. He was taller than her. A lot taller. And still angry.
She looked at his metal arm. Then quickly looked away, back at his other arm.
"Can you—can you sit?" Elia asked. He was too tall for her to get a good look at his shoulder or face.
Without a word, he moved to the bench Elia sat on when they drugged her and questioned her.
Elia quickly pulled shrapnel from his arm. There wasn't much. But he had been near something that had exploded. Most were metal pieces, but there were a few shards of glass she pulled free.
The Soldier sat without flinching, not complaining when she had to use tweezers to dig out a stubborn, jagged shard.
"Sorry," she whispered.
He didn't respond.
"Mission report."
Elia was the one who flinched at the sudden command behind her.
The man spoke sharply to the Soldier and waited.
The Soldier's jaw tightened. Elia saw a vein throbbing in his temple. The Soldier's eyes flashed.
"Eto byl proval," the Soldier gritted out.
"I know it was a failure," this handler snapped back at him. "What happened?"
The Soldier switched back to English. "Fury escaped."
Elia glanced at his face, then back to the shard of glass she was working on pulling from his arm.
"I'll find him," the Soldier said.
"You will," the handler said. "Pierce said to let me know what you need. We're surveilling the city. As soon as we have a location, you'll be activated again. Get ready."
The Soldier gave one short nod and the handler moved to another man to question him.
Elia kept her eyes trained on the blood coming from his cut. She was going to have to suture it.
She prepared the sterile needle and vicryl with shaking hands. She took a shaky breath. She didn't bother telling anyone she wasn't trained for this. It wouldn't matter. Besides, she had done this before with him. It wasn't like it was the first time. She wondered how often he was injured. She looked at his profile, steely and staring straight ahead.
The scent of car exhaust and smoke mixed. It burned her nostrils and made her stomach lurch nauseously.
"Are you ok?" she asked. She didn't know where the words came from. Why she was asking. But she could see how broken the entire team was and how angry he was. Something terrible must have happened.
His eyes slid to her. He looked down at her shaking hands. Elia turned her focus back to stitching him up.
"Soldier," came a new voice.
The Soldier looked up.
"Get ready to go. We're going to cast a wide net. Pierce wants you nearby when they're ready for you to move."
The Soldier agreed with another single, short nod.
"I'm almost done," Elia said softly to him. She finished suturing him and straightened. With him seated, he was almost eye level with her.
She met his eyes. He held her gaze. Something in his eyes flickered behind the raw anger and drive for the mission.
"It's probably going to be sore for awhile," she whispered.
He looked down at his upper arm, the neat line of sutures. Elia's hand still resting there.
Elia quickly jerked her hand away. He wasn't her patient. He definitely wasn't some kid at the children's hospital.
Any hint of humanity in his eyes shuttered and he was entirely a soldier again. A weapon.
Elia stepped back quickly. His attention was on the men gathering near the door, the handler.
He stood and Elia stepped back further. The top of her head barely reached to his shoulders. He was a solid wall of muscle. Muscle that was used to kill.
There was a flurry of instructions, discussion of strategy and areas to cover. Elia couldn't make out much of it, not that she cared. Whoever they were after wouldn't stand a chance. She had learned that much from her time with these men.
Someone gave the signal to go. Elia watched the agents stride out, the Soldier with them, but not really a part of the group.
She looked around the room, injured men still draped over the few seats and slumped on the floor. Actual medics were tending a few of them now. No one paid any attention to her.
She knew what it was like to be set aside, not part of anyone or anything around you.
#
