The doctor || MARVEL

Cut off a head, two take its place ⚝ Chapter 7

April 14-16, 2014
The large van that Steve and Nat are occupying pulls up out of what seems to be a complex of abandoned buildings. With the sun setting behind them Steve and Nat climb out.
"This is it." Steve looks at the fence.
'The file came from these coordinates."
"So did I" The pair walked in through the abandoned complex. "This camp is where I was trained."
"Changed much?"
"A little." As they walk around, Steve gets flashes of memories from before he was a super soldier. This is where he first met Peggy Carter, the woman he grew to love. He had seen her a few times since he got out of the ice. He can almost envision himself before the serum trying to keep up with everybody.
Steve could almost hear Sergeant Duffy yelling,
"Pick up the pace, ladies! Let's go! Let's go! Double time! Come on Rogers, move it!" He would look at smaller Steve "Come on! Fall in! Rogers! I said 'fall in!'"
Natasha breaks him out of his memory's
"This is a dead end. Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." Steve looks around for himself using his good ol' eyes and memories. "What is it?"
The pair walk over to an old building. Natasha followers Steve's lead.
"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place"
Steve throws his shield at the lock on the door, snapping it open.  They descend the stairs weapons at the ready. Natasha turns on the lights. Steve saw the familiar emblem.
SHIELD. 
"This is SHIELD."
Steve looked around with his SHIELD still at the ready.
"Maybe where it started." Steve walks into the next room only to see photos of Howard Stark, Colonel Philps, and Peggy carter. His Peggy. His dance partner.
"There's Stark's father." Natasha remarked at the old dusty photos.
"Howard"
"Who's the girl?" Steve doesn't respond and just walks away and through the halls of the old SHIELD base. " OoOoOo" Natasha teased, "Maybe you and Ginny were just friends if you already got a girl on your arm." She laughed.
Steve just ignored her. He investigated a specific bookshelf. A small bread blowing in his face.
" If you're already working in a secret office..." Steve pulled back a fake bookshelf "Why do you need to hide the elevator?" The two walk in and start their descent to the basement
The elevator came out in the basement's basement. But to both Steve and Natasha's surprise it was filled with technology from the 70's.
"This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient." She sees a modern looking small flash drive port. Natasha struts over to the old computer. Her boots make the only sound in the massive rule.
"Initiate system?" The computer asked as Natasha typed in information and inserted the flash drive.
"Y-E-S, spells yes. Shall we play a game?" Natasha turns to look at Steve "It's from a movie that-"
" Yeah, I saw it."
Before Steve can elaborate, a deep, almost computerized voice interrupts
"Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984." Steve and Natasha spot a camera looking at the two of them taking in their bodies and shapes.
"It's some kind of a recording." Natasha leans back to the keyboard to keep typing into the flash drive.
" I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." one of the screens flash a photo of  Dr. Arnim Zola
"Do you know this thing?" Nat asked Steve
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years." Steve responds still watching the screen
"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain."
"How did you get here?" Steve Intarigates
"Invited"
"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value." Natasha adds to Steve's information.
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped on my own."
"HYDRA died with the Red Skull." Steve says almost as if he is trying to convince himself or ask to be told he was wrong.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." Zola smirks through the non-human body he has on the old computer screen
"Prove it." Steve quips
"Accessing archives." An old photo of Red Skull pops up on the next monitor " HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they will resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding the crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."
"That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you."
"Accidents will happen" The screen shows the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark in 1991 and the recent one of director Nick Fury. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your Life; a zero sum." In anger Steve smashes the monitor. Zola's face pops up on another screen " As I was saying-"
"What's on the drive?"
"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Natasha speaks up for the first time in a few minutes
" The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."
The two heavy doors start to quickly shut, Steve throws his Shield to stop it but is not quick enough.
"Steve, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops." Natasha informs Steve as she types away at the computer.
"Who fired it?"
"SHIELD"
Steve couldn't help but be scared. He had just gotten the chance to get his best friend; the love of his life. Now there is a high chance he will die from the company that is built to protect the world.
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both...out of time." Zola claims to the pair.
Steve notices a hole in the ground and eagerly pulls away the grate so there is a larger chance he and Nat will survive. Just as he and Natasha are covered, fire erupts above them. Rubble falls down from above them. Steve's shield covers them, but with the pressure Natasha passes out. Once the fire above slowed down, Steve picked up Nat and carried her away to the car in hope of finding a safe place to camp out for now.
The dusty old building was now in ruin, soot and fire everywhere. As SHIELD agent Brock Rumlow walked around the old building with the STRIKE team.
" Call in the asset" he ordered his team.
Night was covering Alexander Peirce's house as his caretaker was leaving.
"I'm going to go, Mr. Pierce. you need anything before I leave?" Renata Asked her boss who also happened to be the new director of SHIELD. But Alexander shook his head as he walked into the kitchen. A shadow covered figure, sat in the corner seemingly comfortable.
"No. Uh...it's fine, Renata, you can go home."
"Okay, night-night."
"Good night." The door opened and closed as Renata left. "Want some milk?" Alexander Pierce offered the man. But there was no response "The timetable has moved. Our window is limited. Two targets, Level Six." Alexander poured milk for himself then paced over to the table with the man in the shadows "They already cost me Zola. I want confirmed death in ten hours." Before Alexander could give more information Renata walked back in.
"Sorry, Mr. Pierce, I...I forgot my phone." She stuttered as she noticed the man in the shadows.
"Oh, Renata. I wish you would have knocked." Pierce sighed. He picked up a gun from the table and shot Renata square in the chest.
The next morning in D.C. Sam Wilson is getting home from his run. He noticed two people standing outside of his house.
"Hey, man." Sam greets Steve and a woman who he recognizes as the Black Widow,
"I'm sorry about this. We need a place to lay low." Steve said. Dirt and grime covered both Steve and Natasha.
"Everyone we know is trying to kill us." Natasha adds to Steve's small explanation.
Sam pauses
"Not everyone." He opens the door for the two of them to get inside. As he closes the door he looks around to make sure nobody followed them. "There's a bathroom down the hall" Steve and Nat mumble their thanks as cautiously walk to the room.
As Steve wipes dirt from his face he notices Natasha deeply thinking on the bed as she wipes dirt from her straight ginger hair.
"You okay?"
"Yeah"
"What's going on?" He asked again
"When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but...I guess I can't tell the difference anymore." Natasha explains. Only Clint knew her secrets.
Well Clint and Virginia - or Dr V - whoever she was really. Steve didn't bother to ask anymore. He knew she wouldn't tell him.
Nor would Natasha. Natasha's life before SHIELD was unknown to the other avengers for the most part again, only clint.
"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business." Steve offered to make Natasha smile ever so slightly.
"I owe you." Natasha remembers how Steve had taken her to safety after SHIELD had attacked them
"It's okay."
"If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?" Natasha asked, knowing her reputation with the avengers was kinda mysterious .
They all knew she had been a russian spy, but they did not know from where so naturally they did not fully trust her to do what they consider 'good' little does the Avengers (besides clint) know that she is a part of SHIELD to do good for the world. And Natasha hopes that at least one more person will understand that.
"I would now. And I'm always honest." Natasha's smile grew larger.
"Well, you seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing." Natasha remarked
"Well, I guess I just like to know who I'm fighting." Steve quipped with a small smile.
"I made breakfast. If you guys...eat that sort of thing." Sam said clearly questioning his life choices as he walked into the room with the superhero pair.