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Chapter 5

The Soldier dropped down to the rooftop, landing on his feet with a solid thud. Something about his bone density. He had heard someone explaining it to a new handler once. The serum had built muscle, solidified his bones. Made him a killing machine. A weapon. Useful to the mission.

He glanced up to make sure there was no sign left from the higher roof he had dropped down from, then his attention was back to what was in front of him. The mission.

He set up his rifle, assembling it quickly. It was second nature, movements he could do as easily as breathing. Attach the scope, click the magazine into place.

Fury was in the apartment in the building across from him. He lowered himself into position, the stock of the rifle solid and familiar. He looked through the scope. This was familiar in a way he never could explain. But he never bothered to try. It didn't matter to the mission. But he knew how to hold the rifle, how to be a sniper, and the skill didn't come from Hydra or the serum.

A light flicked on in the apartment. It turned off.

He applied the slightest pressure to the trigger, ready. In that brief moment when the light came on, he had seen the two silhouettes, identified Fury. He wasn't going to give them a chance to move.

He pulled the trigger. The blast mingled with glass shattering. He shot again. And again.

He had hit the target. This time he hadn't failed.

He quickly stood. With mechanical precision, he dropped the rifle over the edge of the building. There was a clean up team below, ready to take any hint of evidence and clear the area.

He looked again at the apartment. There was a third person in there now, he had heard the door break in and saw movement. But no sign of Fury. He wasn't going to get back up.

The Soldier turned and ran across the roof. He heard glass shatter below him. The man with Fury—the captain—had launched himself out a window and into the neighboring building. He sped up, knowing the pursuer was racing through the building below him. He jumped, easily making it the distance to the next roof, landing on his feet and keeping his pace.

He heard the man behind him land on the roof, then a grunt and he sensed as much as he felt something coming toward him.

He whirled, striking out his arm out, ready to block an attack, but the shield coming toward him had him quickly adjusting and catching it. The force of the shield struck hard, but his titanium arm absorbed the shock.

He glared at the captain. He wanted him to know what was coming. That he was coming. He was going to take down S.H.I.E.L.D. no matter what it took. And anyone who stood in his way was going to be destroyed.

The captain looked stunned. The Soldier saw him take in his metal arm.

Before his opponent could move, he launched the shield back at him with all the power of his titanium arm and serum enhanced strength behind it.

He didn't wait to see if it leveled the man. While his enemy was taking the brunt of the shield coming at him, the Soldier ran to the edge of the building and dropped over it.

There was an open window waiting for him to swing into, out of sight. There wouldn't be any trail for anyone to follow. He would be what he had been for the past ninety years.

A ghost.

#

Elia leaned forward on her cot. She pressed her hands against her head, trying to press harder than the vise inside.

Her stomach pitched and rolled. She squeezed her head harder, her fingers catching at her hair and pulling.

Whatever they had given her to wake was worse than the sedative she had been living on. She had thought the pain would ease once she had treated the injured strike team and the drugs finished working their way through her system, but every single pain, every side effect just kept building.

She was going to be sick.

She tumbled off her cot, landing on her hands and knees. With excruciating effort that had every nerve ending burning, she made it over to the small toilet in the corner of her cell.

She lost whatever lunch she had eaten. The memory of the food had been lost under the haze when she had eaten it, and now the food itself was lost to the commode.

She dropped down on the tile floor and rested her head against the wall.

She heard footsteps coming down the hall outside her open door. So loud they echoed in her head, piercing with every echo. She opened her eyes, squinting at the lights that glared in her eyes.

The Soldier.

He was striding past, clearly back from the mission he had been on earlier. When he swung his gaze into her cell, she recoiled instinctively.

He wore his mask over the bottom half of his face. His hair was tangled, windblown, a stringy mess around his face. His eyes were smudged black. Elia could only assume it was to help him blend in with the shadows, but the main effect was to make him more threatening than he already was.

He looked at her without any movement of his face.

Elia squeezed her eyes shut. Against the pain. Against the threats. Against the intimidation of the soldier with a metal arm.

When she opened them, she was left with only the pain. The hall outside her door was empty.

Her stomach churned again and she forced stiff, aching muscles to comply and move her back toward the toilet to be sick.

#

The Soldier entered the cafeteria.

It had been a day since his mission. With Fury gone, Pierce was centralizing power. Moving to the next phase of the plan.

He listened to the change of the conversation around him when he entered. It was expected and it didn't matter to him.

He got a tray, loaded it with food and moved to an empty table without speaking to anyone in the cafeteria.

The table he usually occupied by himself was taken. A small form sat hunched over a tray. She didn't look up, didn't acknowledge anyone around her.

He knew they had been keeping her under the influence of the necessary drugs. He had seen her when he returned from his mission the day before. The way she was curled up in pain on the floor in her cell. She wouldn't give up her wealth of information about influential people willingly, so the daily injections were necessary. He also knew they had used other injections on her. Ones that would clear her mind quickly. They balanced the two depending on what they needed her for.

Since she wasn't clutching her head in pain, he knew which one she was currently under the influence of. She may as well be a piece of furniture so he set his tray down and took a chair at the table.

He ate the food without tasting it. The food was fuel for missions. Nothing more. Protein to fuel his higher metabolism. His tray also held a handful of supplements that the other trays didn't. It would make up for the time in cryo freeze when he didn't have any nutrients.

"That agent is having an affair."

The murmured words caught him off guard. He looked at her sharply.

She was half nodding off over her tray, but she lifted groggy eyes. She looked past him, to an agent three tables over.

"He's having an affair with that one's wife," she said, her voice thick with the medication keeping it quiet.

The Soldier didn't care. He didn't care about any of these men and he cared even less about their secrets and lives. But he did find it interesting that she seemed to be collecting Hydra's secrets to add to her already impressive stockpile.

"You can tell…" she started, then seemed about to doze off. She roused herself. "The way he acts…around…around…" Her train of thought apparently gone, she looked back down at her tray holding a meager amount of food.

"And Rumlow…"

At that, the Soldier gave her his attention.

"He would have an affair. With Presley's wife. If he could." She spooned some food into her mouth and ate in silence, her eyes dull.

"He doesn't like you," she broke the silence.

The Soldier watched her. She didn't even look like she knew what she was saying. She also wasn't saying anything the Soldier didn't know.

"He…Rumlow…enhanced soldiers…" she murmured, her head bobbing like she was about to drift off. But then she continued. "He's jealous. Of you. Captain America. He's jealous," she repeated.

As long as Rumlow didn't let it affect their work, the Soldier didn't care.

He finished his meal quickly, not speaking. She mumbled under her breath a few more times, but it was lost under the conversation around them.

"Where are the non combatants?"

The leader of their security forces strode to the middle of the room.

Several medics stood. A couple of technicians who worked on his arm.

"New orders," the high ranking man said, his tone making it clear he wasn't about to explain what the new orders were. "All non combatants report to the gym."

He scanned the cafeteria, stopping when he saw Elia half unconscious in her seat.

"Bring her," he ordered to no one in particular. He turned and strode out. Trays scraped across tables as the men gathered their things and emptied trays, no matter how much they had eaten or left.

Two men were about to leave, when they turned back. They each took one of Elia's arms and half lifted her from her chair. They hauled her toward the door with the other medics and technicians.

The Soldier watched her go.

He turned his attention back to his tray.

#

The burning was agony. But it was only a hint of the pain to come.

Elia braced herself for the burn that spread through her arm as the injected serum flowed through her, waking her up.

This was a smaller dose. The pain didn't black out her vision this time. Just piercing pain at her temples.

"Things are evolving," a man she knew as the leader of security was saying. The men around her stood. There was also a female physician and two female laboratory techs. They all stood at attention. Elia struggled to stay upright, but it became easier as the latest injection cleared the sedative. Or at least, it would be easier if the pain didn't make her want to curl into a ball.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. is falling. We'll be taking over the void that's left when they fall completely. But we're not there yet."

Elia didn't understand anything about the battles everyone was talking about. She didn't know what their plan involved. She only knew they had killed Senator Marks and she had known him to be a good man. She quickly pushed that memory from her mind. She didn't want to think about his murder.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. agents may not comply. There's going to be a remnant that's dangerous. Captain America has already gone rogue. If he finds us, we need to be prepared."

Elia felt the men standing closest to her tense. She looked at them. Saw the fear on their faces until her vision blurred again.

"We're non combatants, sir," said one of the medics nervously.

"And now you're our last line of defense," the leader retorted. "You won't be aggressors. But you're going to be trained in defense. All of you."

Elia sank back against the wall. The last thing she wanted to do was fight. Fight anyone.

The door to the gym opened and a few strike agents walked in. They glanced over at the knot of scientists and medics and one of them snickered, seeing what was going on.

"We'll start with basic defensive maneuvers. Judo techniques. Martial arts blocks. Line up."

Elia stayed against the wall, letting it support her as the others moved into a reluctant line. She ended up at the end of the line.

"This is a basic throw," the man was saying.

Elia lifted her head enough to see him lining up against an opponent for a demonstration. Osoto Gari. She knew the throw. She had used it in a million sparring matches when she had taken lessons.

She ignored the instruction, instead trying to fight against the pain searing through her head. The muscle spasms taking hold of every limb.

She had to fight with every fiber of her being to stay standing. To pretend she was listening.

"Now do it," came the command.

One by one the reluctant line of Hydra personnel took their turn attempting the defensive throw.

When it was Elia's turn, she started to reach out automatically, ready to do a move ingrained in her. She caught herself. She moved her hand into the wrong position, took hold of her mock attacker wrongly, put her wrong foot forward, her alignment off.

Somewhere under the drugs and the confusion—the pain—she knew she couldn't let them know she could defend herself. It was her only chance at protecting herself. Them being kept unaware. That secret was the only thing left that belonged solely to her.

The leader made a sound of disgust at her ineptitude and dismissed her to the end of the line curtly.

Elia went to the end of the line, keeping one hand on her forehead to push back against the pressure building there.

"Again," snapped the strike team member training them. The line of medical and tech personnel began to move through the exercise again.

Elia stayed against the wall with her eyes closed until one of the medics gave her arm a sharp nudge. She opened her eyes. The gym swam in front of her and she blinked furiously, trying to see straight. But it didn't matter. She was dragged to the trainer and he stepped toward her, giving her a chance to block him. She again put her wrong foot towards him and grabbed with the wrong hand. Not that it mattered. The trainer in front of her split into two, blurring and separating in her vision, and she chose the wrong one. She moved toward air, falling forward onto the mat with a thump.

The trainer made a disgusted noise and mumbled something to the leader of the security team about a hopeless task.

She tried to push to stand, but the pain searing through her arms had her gasping for breath and dropping back to the mat.

The trainer said something about throwing punches and the group moved to the far end of the gym, toward the punching bags and sparring equipment.

Elia closed her eyes, the mat cool against her flushed cheek. The pain thudding in her head made it feel like her head was bouncing against the mat.

She stayed there, too miserable to move, listening to the sounds around her, echoing through her head, making her grit her teeth.

Little by little, the sounds dissipated. Just one thwack. Again. And again.

Elia lifted her head, instantly regretting the move when sharp pains laced around the vertebrae of her neck. She let her head rest back on the mat, but this time facing toward the noise.

Across the gym was the Soldier.

He pulled a knife out of his vest, deftly swirling it then flinging it at a target. Another knife. Another. Five knives thrown with brutal force and every one found its mark.

He walked towards the target, a solid twenty feet from him and pulled each knife, every one going back in to a pocket or sheath on him. He turned and started to walk back to his starting point.

His eyes, fixed on the target, then on his return to the line he was throwing from, fell Elia's direction.

Reflexively, Elia's fingers curled against the mat, but there was nothing to hold on to. She just laid there, seared by the pain and by those hard blue eyes staring at her.

He didn't move for a beat. Just kept his eyes on her.

Then he spun a knife in his hand and put it back in a pocket. He turned back to his target. Elia let herself sink more heavily onto the mat. She kept her eyes on him, but he didn't look at her again. Until he had thrown all his knives. He looked at her then, still with no reaction, and returned to throw again.

The pain in her head finally started to ebb as she listened to the rhythmic thumps of the knives stabbing, his footsteps going to retrieve them, and another round of throwing. She closed her eyes and let the sounds fill her mind, instead of excruciating throbbing and the knowledge she'd be drugged into the other direction soon enough and someone would be digging around in her memories.

#

Steve had walked the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. hundreds of times since his return from the ice. It had been familiar enough. The general setting, if not the Triskelion, was where he had spent his life after being chosen as America's super soldier. His life was military hallways, rank and file, duty, and missions. But nothing felt familiar now. Everything was slightly off. His duty was to protecting people, his country. And Fury had just blown a giant hole right into that mission.

Agent 13, the woman who he now knew as Agent 13, thanked Pierce. "Captain Rogers," she said as she passed Steve. As if she hadn't lied to him repeatedly. Had him thinking of following Natasha's advice and thinking of her as someone to ask on a date.

Betrayal wasn't something Steve expected from the agency he had devoted his life to serving.

"Neighbor," he said, unable to keep the coldness from his tone. Not that he really tried.

He focused on Pierce. On this meeting. Knowing what Fury had warned him of, knowing he couldn't trust anyone, his entire world had shifted. It was like waking up from the ice a second time. Finding that he didn't understand the world he once had.

He listened to what Pierce said, his welcoming tone. But he also was acutely aware of the warning beneath Pierce's words. If Steve chose the wrong side, Pierce wasn't going to call in any favors for him. He went into the meeting knowing that. But he had known that when Fury was in charge.

He looked at the pictures in Pierce's office. Ones that told of trust and brotherhood. Pictures could be deceiving.

He was mostly a tool to the higher ups. He always had been. Propoganda and then missions. Whatever the country needed him for.

But he had never felt torn in his loyalty.

"Captain."

Steve stopped, turning to look at Pierce. Ready for whatever he was about to say.

"Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way and they're going to regret it. Anyone."

Steve hadn't really expected Pierce to be so direct. But Pierce was clearly not telling the truth about everything he knew, and that made his threat even more dangerous.

"Understood." Steve understood. He understood exactly how expendable he was to Pierce.

He would do what Fury had failed at. Watch his back.

#

"Keep her awake."

Elia kept her head down so no one would see her grimace. It wasn't a new reflex to Hydra, but one she had learned growing up. It was too easy to offend someone in power with unpleasant reactions or emotions. Hiding them had been easier. Safer. Kept her dad's anger from her.

Someone grabbed at her long hair and yanked her head back. Stars burst in front of her eyes and her stomach pitched violently at the movement. She took a slow breath through her nose, willing the contents of her stomach to stay down.

"You need to know the truth," the man said.

Elia gave a slight nod against the pressure of the hand holding her hair. She would listen to whatever they wanted her to.

"You've been fed lies your entire life."

She recognized this voice. She turned her head slightly. Rumlow fixed her with a hard stare. "S.H.I.E.L.D. claimed the Avengers. They claimed they're protecting society. Do you want to know what they really do?"

She didn't. She didn't want any part of this.

"This is what they do," Rumlow said between clenched teeth.

Elia looked at him. His face was bruised. A cut split his cheekbone. She didn't say anything.

"Captain America," he nearly spat the words. "America's hero. Does this look like something a hero would do?"

Elia shook her head slightly. It didn't. But she also didn't trust Rumlow. Maybe he had done something to earn the beating.

"Hydra is going to save the world. Protect people. Would you rather protect people or hurt them?"

Elia didn't want to hurt anyone.

"Well?" Rumlow demanded.

"Protect people," she whispered.

Rumlow straightened, getting out of her face. "Then you chose the right side."

Elia's head was fuzzy with confusion. What he said seemed so clear. But she had seen what the metal armed soldier did. How ruthless he was. They had kidnapped her. That wasn't protecting people.

"Dose her," Rumlow directed. "I have to find Captain America."

The derision in his voice was louder than anything he had actually said to her. And she saw the twitch in his jaw when he spoke of Captain America attacking him. She could see what he didn't say. He wanted the power Captain America had. He wanted to be the one who could lay someone out with a punch and get them to bend to his will.

Elia dropped her head again. She hoped she would keep that knowledge to herself when the drugs seeped into her brain and her mind was turned over to the handler.

It wouldn't end well if anyone knew what she really thought.

#