Daughter of the Shield

Chapter 16

"What's the alternative?

"I should go see him," Jo stood up, ignoring Sam's question, finished the bottle and tossed it into the nearby dumpster. Before she could set off for the church both hers and Sam's phones began blowing up with notifications.

"Looks like the worlds in chaos."

"When is it not?" Jo groaned.

Jo and Sam arrived at Steve's location, which was a hotel. It had not taken much convincing to get Sam to promise to not tell Steve about the tracker Jo had planted on his phone.

"Hey, Steve, you need to-"Jo stopped when she noticed Steve was not standing by the elevator alone.

"What is it?" Steve asked, looking at Sharon and Jo completely confused.

"No."

"You can't tell- "

"I said no, and that means no, so no," Jo growled starring Sharon down. "And as I was saying, Steve, there's something you need to see."

Steve, Sam, and Jo stood in front of the TV in Sharon's hotel room. Listening to the news broadcaster explain the explosion in Vienna. Sharon was on the phone with a co-worker trying to find out what she could.

"Oh God," Jo whispered as the news broadcaster named James Buchanan Barnes as their number one suspect.

Sharon put down her phone and looked at the TV. "I have to go to work."

"So do we," Jo grumbled.

Jo sat beside Sam at the bar. Sam wore a baseball cap and sunglasses, while Jo wore jut the sunglasses and had dyed her short hair brown. She was tired of blonde anyways. Steve was outside on the phone with Natasha.

"Did you have any run-ins with Barnes when you worked for Shield?"

"No, but I did before Shield recruited me."

Sam looked at Jo slightly surprised. He took another bite of his food and motioned for her to continue.

"After I escaped Hydra, and had spent a couple years learning how to live in hiding, I started hunting down Hydra operatives who had escaped the war. There were many who did not hide as well as the rest." Jo explained. "One night, I infiltrated an old Hydra compound in Russia that was said to be abandoned. I figured there might be some useful files left there or something. I usually sent such things to Shield anonymously. The problem was, it was not abandoned. It was set up similarly to the first place Hydra did experiments on me. Though I was in no way prepared to fight someone like Barnes."

"How so?"

"He was ruthless. I may have matched him in strength and speed, but I was sloppy, untrained. While he had years of experience in the army and had been trained by Hydra's finest. I didn't stand a chance."

"How did you even survive?"

"Only way I could, I died." Jo took a sip of her beet before continuing. "The compound was near the ocean, so, I let him get a few hits in before I fell in."

"In Russia! The water must have been freezing!"

"I had pneumonia for three months." Jo chuckled.

"Does Steve know this?"

Jo shook her head, "No, I never saw any good in telling him this. When I figured out who had tried to kill me I did try and find him again. He had been my father's best friend, I figured Steve would have wanted me to at least try and save him. But he was a ghost but the time I was strong enough to return to the compound."

Jo stopped when she saw Steve walk in with a grim look on his face.

"She tell you to stay out of it?" Sam asked. "Might have a point."

"He'd do it for me."

"1945, maybe, I just want to make sure we consider all our options. The people that shoot at you, usually wind up shooting at us." Sam motioned over to Jo and himself as he spoke.

Sharon stepped up beside Steve before he could respond. "Tips have been pouring in since the footage went public. Everybody thinks the Winter Soldier goes to their gym. Most of its noise. Except for this." Sharon slid a file over to Steve. "My boss expects a briefing, pretty much now... So that's all the head start you're gonna get."

"Thank you."

"You're gonna have to hurry, we have orders to shoot on sight." Sharon looked over at Jo before leaving.

Jo said no in sign language before Sharon disappeared out the door.

"You wanna explain what you keep saying no to?"

"No," Jo answered taking the file from Steve and walking out of the bar.