The Girl & The Hound | Winter Soldier

EIGHTEEN

"How did you get here?" Steve questioned, standing beside Natasha as he stared at the computer image, awaiting a thorough explanation as he felt his long since buried anger resurface.

"Invited," he simply replied, Steve's face contorting as Natasha sought to unravel his sudden confusion.

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War Two. S.H.I.E.L.D recruited German scientists with strategic values," she explained as Steve glanced at her before then diverting his attention back to Zola, who flickered momentarily as he commented.

"They thought I could help their cause- I also helped my own," he chortled.

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve objected, his statement laced with slight doubt as his eyebrows furrowed, holding his shield closer.

"Cut off one head," Zola retorted, "and two more shall take its place," his grim reply echoed in Steve's head as he adjusted his grip on his shield.

"Prove it," Steve firmly demanded, adjusting his posture as he seemed to glue himself to his spot as Zola's voice notified he was accessing the archives.

The screen suddenly sketched with old footage of the Red Skull and the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D, Natasha and Steve instantly enthralled, "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom," Zola began, "but what we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much- humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly," Natasha and Steve gazed at the screen intrigued, footage of Captain America taking prisoners playing as the two slightly shuffled foreword, countless videos of war adorning the screen.

"After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew-," the footage highlighted the HYDRA agents amongst the S.H.I.E.L.D, "a beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

The screen sketched with glitches and flaws as footage rolled, presenting field reports of the assassinations carried out by the 'Winter Soldier,' top-level missions assigned by HYDRA. Natasha shook her head as she watched the footage unravel, revealing unbelievable truths, "no that's impossible, S.H.I.E.L.D would have stopped you-"

"-Accidents will happen," Zola retorted, the screen transitioning to reports of Howard and Maria Stark's covered up assassination that took the facade of a car accident and the murder of Nicholas Fury, the footage evidently highlighting the perpetrators were HYDRA. "We 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."

Steve clenched his jaw as the screen suddenly twisted on to multiple victims and murderers, both in the name of HYDRA, "we won, Captain," Zola retorted as suddenly the footage revealed Sawyer sketched across the screen as Steve's face instantly contorted in horror as Natasha's contorted in shock, countless articles of her being beaten by her partner countless times who was unknowingly a HYDRA agent before she escaped with her life after almost being murdered in an alleyway.

Her image was from a news-paper article, subtitled of how she cheated death and was impossibly alive at the state her abusive boyfriend had left her in. The picture showed her tattered in bruises and slashed cuts, her hair dishevelled and her body destroyed with continous beatings. Another assortment of text potrayed that she filed a lawsuit to keep the ordeal silent so her parents would never find out but that it was not a newly formed event and had infact been a continuous torture of broken bones and bruised limbs.