innocent

lab rat

"How about you talk or he blows your fucking brains out." Cecelia said to him as Bucky walked over. He grabbed him from Sam and dragged him to a seat. He made him sit down, all while he held his gun to his head. Nobody knew if Bucky was bluffing over shooting him, or actually going to shoot him.

"Ever bounty hunter in the city is here. We gotta go!" Sharon exclaimed as Cecelia cursed a not so good word in Russian. Bucky would've scolded her, but he was busy holding a man at gunpoint.

Bucky pulled the trigger, the gun moving away from his head. Nagel gasped and stiffened up, his eyes squinting shut.

"Okay. Okay. I was brought into HYDRA's Winter and HYDRA Soldier program to pick up their work after the five failed subjects in Siberia. I had 1 halfway successful serum, and that was her. When HYDRA fell, I was recruited by the CIA. They had blood samples from an American test subject with semi-stable traces of serum in his system. It was harder than before since he didn't have full traces, but I managed. Ever since her, I knew what to do." He said as Cecelia stared at him. Her head tilted to the side as he remembered everything he'd done to the female. Even after serum was injected to her long ago.

His project was to make more, and since Cecelia had serum in her, he would make it from her. He'd done countless of tests, almost torturing the girl. Constant needles and injections. There was machinery among other experiments on a child.

He needed her blood for his experiments, then she became a lab rat for more of the serum. It could've killed her, but HYDRA didn't care. They could make 100 more Celia's if the test was right.

So after more testing, he'd gotten the serum. And once again, it was injected into her. She was only a kid when she had her first injection, a toddler even. So she was given his version of the serum. It wouldn't make her jacked up, or muscular, it would make her strong.

He couldn't make more because then HYDRA fell, thankfully. No other children of anyone's knowing could be victimized.

"After much labor, I was to isolate the necessary compounds in his blood, much like I did with her. I was a god. I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do. But mine was going to be different. No clunky machines or jacked up bodies. Mine was going to be subtle, optimized, perfect. I did it once before, and I could do it again." He said looking at Cecelia, a sick smirk on his face. Cecelia looked away from him, her hand tightly around her gun.

"How have we never heard about this?" Sam asked as he read Cecelia's expression. She was uncomfortable, she was his lab rat, and she was there in front of him. He was staring at her like she was a piece of meat. He knew that Nagel was proud of his "creation", even though what he did was sickly.

"Because...Before I was able to complete my work, I turned to dust. Then when I returned it was 5 years later, program had been abandoned, so I came here. The Power Broker was more than happy to fund the recreation of my work." He said, still staring at the 15 year old.

"How many vials did you make?" Sam asked him, his face dropped and he looked at the ground.

"20. Karli Morgenthau stole those, so...I can only imagine what the Power Broker has planned for that poor girl." Nagel said, thinking of the countless possibilities of what could happen to Karli.

It was wrong for Cecelia to feel good that it was stolen. She was relieved. She was relieved because he had nobody to be his subject. He had nobody to strap down and inject serums into while they pleaded for him to stop.

"Where's Karli now?" Sam asked curiously, needing an answer.

"I don't know where she is. But a couple of days ago, she called and asked if I could help someone named Donya Madani. Poor woman has tuberculosis. Typical overpopulation in displacement camps like that." He explained to them, Cecelia leaned on the wall as she looked around his lab. Seeing vials among vials of his experiments. Smelling strong chemicals, ones that burned her nose when she smelt it.