Flying through these today. Keeping my fingers warm as Winter is on its way!
I mean that literally, not like in the story...Its literally coming into Winter in Australia... ha
Enjoy
xo
Chapter 3
Legend
Steve sat inside a van as it sped through the streets on their way to Berlin, with Sam behind him, T'challa, the Wakandan Prince in front of him and the mysterious woman in front of him, heavily restrained.
Sam leaned forward, eyeing off the Wakandan Prince. "So, you like cats?"
"Sam," Steve warned him.
"What? Dude shows up in a cat suit and you don't want to know more?" Sam retorted.
Steve sighed, while he understood his friend's curiosity, his mouthy nature was going to get him in trouble one day.
He looked closely at the Wakandan Prince. "Your suit, it's made of Vibranium?"
T'challa glanced sideways, narrowing his eyes. "The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle, passed from warrior to warrior. And now, because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So, I ask you... as both warrior and king... how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?"
Steve narrowed his eyes at T'challa. Bucky had said to him when he had spoke to him in his apartment that he hadn't been in Vienna, and that he didn't do that anymore. He knew there had to be more to the story, but how he was going to find that out, he didn't know.
"Well, I would love to know how he can be in two places at once," the woman spoke up suddenly, turning her head slightly sideways as they headed into an underground car park. "I mean, I get it, you guys are like super soldiers or something, but it would be one hell of a fast trip to get from Vienna to Bucharest in only a couple of hours, without being seen."
"And you are?" Steve asked after a moment of considering her words. She had an Australian accent, he recognised it from TV shows he had watched while trying to catch up with the world. Her blonde hair, while dishevelled, was tied back into a bun, and he could see she was sporting cuts and bruises on her face.
"Bucky's neighbour."
"And does Bucky's neighbour have a name?" Sam asked pointedly.
"None of your damn business," she answered, turning back to face the front. Steve was curious about the woman, he recalled seeing Bucky trying to get to her in the underpass, and also watching as she tried to slow T'challa down, without much luck. The fact that she had continued after him, even after being left behind on the building, had Steve intrigued as to who she was. He'd seen her fighting inside the apartment building, she could easily hold her own, and hadn't taken a back step when faced with a stair case full of fully trained, armed tactical police officers.
They were unloaded from the van, the woman led by her handcuffs by an armed guard.
Steve turned to watch as was Bucky was transported into the Joint Counter Terrorist centre inside a prison pod. The pod featured state of the art restraints, specifically designed to stop people like him from breaking free. Bucky didn't look at Steve, but glanced towards the woman as she was led away, but the woman never once looked up to meet his gaze.
Steve and Sam began walking towards Sharon Carter, T'challa following closely behind. She was standing beside a diminutive, gray-head man, who wore a sullen look on his face.
"What's going to happen to him?" Steve demanded, as he stopped before them.
The grey haired man responded before Sharon could. "The same thing that ought to happen to you, psychological evaluation and extradition."
"This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander," Sharon replied, appearing rather put off by the man by her side.
"What about our lawyer?" Steve asked, raising an eyebrow at the small man.
"Lawyer, that's funny." He looked to Sharon and motioned towards them. "See that their weapons are placed in lock up. Oh, we'll write you a receipt."
Sam narrowed his eyes at Everett as they began to follow him into the building. "I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that."
As they began to walk away, Steve looked back and caught Bucky's eye, who looked from him back to the woman who had been helping him, a meaningful look in his eye.
"What about the girl that was with Bucky? What's going to happen with her?" Steve asked, looking back towards Everett.
"Oh, she'll be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive, assaulting numerous police officers, and whatever previous criminal charges she no doubt has, considering the company she keeps," Everett replied snidely.
Steve frowned, looking at Sharon who walked beside him. "Who is she?"
"We don't know, she hasn't given us a name and so far, we have absolutely no intel on her," Sharon replied, sounding slightly exasperated. She glanced sideways at Steve, an apologetic look on her face. "There's nothing on her, we can't find any record of her by facial recognition, by licence, fingerprint, nothing."
"Are you saying she doesn't exist?" Sam asked dubiously. "Because when she jumped up and grabbed me on that building, it felt a lot like she existed."
"We're looking into it," Sharon answered curtly.
They were led upstairs to the offices inside the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre and shown two offices.
"You'll be provided with an office, instead of a cell," Everett said, motioning down the skywalk towards the offices. "Do me a favour, stay in it?"
"I don't intend on going anywhere," T'challa replied flatly. Steve and Sam looked at each other before looking down the hallway as Natasha walked towards them. She stopped in front of Steve.
"For the record, this is what making it worse looks like," she murmured to him, as she led them both down the hallway, where Tony was on his phone.
"He's alive," Steve replied as they stopped near Tony.
"No. Romania was not Accords-sanctioned," Tony said into his phone. "And, Colonel Rhodes is supervising cleanup."
"Try not to break anything while we fix this," Natasha warned, looking pointedly between Steve and Sam.
"Consequences? You bet there'll be consequences. Obviously you can quote me on that 'cause I just said it. Anything else? Thank you, sir."
"Consequences?" Steve asked curiously.
"Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted. Had to give him something," Tony replied in an offhand manner, as if it meant next to nothing at all.
"I'm not getting that shield back, am I?" Steve asked flatly, looking at Natasha.
"Technically, it's the government's property. Wings, too," she replied matter-of-factly.
"That's cold," Sam said with a hiss, narrowing his eyes at Natasha who shrugged and looked at him as if to say 'I told you so'.
"Warmer than jail," Tony bit back.
Steve was agitated after having it out with Tony about the accords, again. They were never going to see eye to eye over it, especially when Tony couldn't see the harm that was going to be done by it.
He sat in the office designated to them, watching the screens on the walls. One was of Bucky's prison pod inside a specially developed bunker style room, while the other was the woman.
They still didn't know who she was, but she was sat inside an interview room with her hands cuffed to the table. Sharon entered their office as Natasha walked into the interview room with the woman. "The receipt for your gear."
She handed it to Sam. "Bird costume? Come on!"
Sharon raised her hands up in surrender. "I didn't write it." She looked to the screen Steve was looking at.
"Any info on her yet?" Steve asked curiously, seeing her looking at the screen too.
"Must have, if Natasha is in there." Sharon looked out of the windows of the office to see if anyone was looking before reaching forward and pushing a button on the commlink, which stopped the restriction on the audio from the interview room.
"So, you want to give us your name yet?" Natasha asked, sitting down across from the woman. The woman yawned, moving her head from side to side, as if to work kinks out of it.
"Would you be here if you didn't already know it?"
Natasha smirked, before leaning forward. "I want to tell you a story..."
"Let me guess, a story of a young girl, taken from her family, trained to be a spy, a killer and a ghost?" She leaned forward, looking straight into Natasha's face. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Romanoff?"
Steve, Sam and Sharon looked at each other in confusion, before looking back at the screen.
"You know me?" Natasha spoke in Russian, an automatic translation system kicking in, the translation appearing at the bottom of the screen. Natasha barely registered any surprise on her face.
"You're the only one left, child. Other than me, that is, although, obviously, they never made another like me, did they?" the woman responded, nonchalantly.
Natasha gave a small smile. "We were told you'd been killed, Nikulkin."
Steve and Sam leaned forward, staring at the screen. "What the hell?" Sam breathed. "Is she?"
"I think so."
All three stared at the screen as Natasha continued to speak to her.
"Alexia Nikulkin. You were legend in The Red Room, what happened to you?" Natasha asked in English again, leaning back in her chair again.
"What? You want your new bosses to easily understand now without translations?" the detained woman asked with a knowing smirk. "They tried to send me off to HYDRA, to be trained and tested on because I was the strongest they'd ever had, but they didn't count on me being THAT strong."
"So you broke free?"
"Broke free, killed every single person on that escort and then went after the teachers at The Red Room." Her smirk was unsettling, almost evil. "I would have continued if it weren't for HYDRA and The Red Room sending people after me. Six Black Widows, and five HYDRA operatives later, I thought it was better to just lay low and live."
"So why Bucky, Alexia?"
Steve noticed Alexia furrowed her brow and cocked her head to one side. It told him plenty.
"Why Bucky? Wait, you thought I was targeting Bucky?"
"Weren't you?"
"Hey, I was hiding out there first," she replied defensively. "I'd been living in Bucharest for the last three years, probably the longest I've ever stayed in one place, it was well enough away from prying eyes, and then he rocks up suddenly, looking all sad and mopey."
Steve chewed the inside of his cheek, so she wasn't after him. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"So you're telling me, you had no idea who he was? Or that he was on the run?" Natasha asked dubiously.
Alexia smiled wryly. "Well, of course, I knew there was something up. Furnished room, cash payment, no bond, the only people who lived in that building were either poor as hell or running from something. And he was clearly, no exception."
"Then, if you were happy where you were, why'd you help him?" Natasha asked, leaning on the table with her elbows.
Alexia sighed and pursed her lips then, before scoffing. "Honestly, it was more of a reflex action to having a rifle raised towards me than anything chivalrous," she answered leaning back. "But, once that first hit was in, I could tell he wasn't leaving me behind either."
Steve felt his heart soar slightly. Bucky was still in there. Only Bucky would do everything he could to protect someone else.
"So, tell me, Romanoff, he's the Winter Soldier, right?" Alexia asked finally, looking at Natasha knowingly. Natasha didn't answer, but folded her arms across her chest instead. "Ahhh, so he's the one that took my place."
"What? Did she just say that?" Sam exclaimed in utter shock.
"Wait... that means..." Sharon murmured.
"She's enhanced," Steve finished, remembering everything that had happened in Bucharest. Jumping from the balcony, keeping pace with Bucky, disarming and subduing multiple armed personnel. It explained everything.
"What do you mean?" Natasha asked in confusion. "He took your place?"
"You said it yourself, Romanoff, I was legend in The Red Room. The best of the best. HYDRA heard of me too, and they had...plans...underway. I fitted the bill for the first test subject."
"So what happened?"
"I overheard them when the drugs wore off prematurely. You see, the serum in my blood burned through the drugs faster than they anticipated, but they were saying I was the first of the WINTER project. I was going to be turned into a 'blank slate'. Even as a sixteen year old, I had a good idea what that meant."
Steve wanted to say something, to break the silence in the office, but there was so much he needed to let sink in.
"Sixteen..." Sharon breathed.
"Wait... so how old is she now? Because she's looking mighty fine for a hundred year old."
"Well, I'm sure you know what to expect now then?" Natasha asked finally, standing up from the table.
"Sure, poking, prodding, prison, if they can find one to hold me," she winked, stretching her shoulders and smiling. "Oh, by the way, when they figure out how Bucky got fourteen hours away within hours of hanging out with me, let me know, will ya? You know, just between us girls?"
Steve looked at Sharon expectantly. She shrugged, shaking her head. He understood her reaction, no one in a position of authority would accept her as an alibi. They would be looked at as the bad helping the bad. He sighed, leaning back in his seat, lost as to what he could do to help.
I have to admit, I'm really enjoying making my OC seem just a little bit deranged. I wonder if that's saying something about me hehe
xo
Krayzee