Reality in Motion

a simple b and e

The flashlight scanned over the empty, dark and semi-quiet room. The room would've been completely quiet if not for the steady dripping noise coming from one of the back corners from a leak of some sort. Q hoped it was just water, but wouldn't be investigating further to confirm or deny it. The sub-basement was already creepy enough.

Surprisingly, when Q and Dawson arrived at Dnipropetrovsk, they found that the factory Hydra had used as a cover for the start of the soldier project was still active, even though Russia, the factory's biggest buyer, had previously announced it was severing the relationship. This discovery made it clear that the pair would have to be stealthy when it came to getting into the former Hydra base. It took awhile to figure out the best way in - recon on security, entrances and exits, and whatever else they needed to make sure they had covered before launching their mission. Even if SHIELD had collapsed, basic mission protocol was ingrained into their brains and they weren't about to throw that away.

"This looks like something straight out of Saw." Dawson commented, sounding a bit grossed out. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

"I hate that you said that." she let her annoyance seep into her tone, "Now I'm freaked out."

"Good, you should be." he gave her a side eye, keeping his flashlight steady, "Who knows what Hydra's got hidden in here."

"Okay, it's time for you to stop talking." she said matter of factly, nodding her head once and pressing her lips together. Reaching up to adjust her black ski hat, she tried to ignore the nervousness bubbling up in her stomach, tying itself it into knots while her head went to a terrible place full of Hydra torture. Picturing them capturing her and strapping her to one of the dusty machines in the room - doing whatever they did to Bucky, but to her and much more advanced since they had years to perfect their methods. It was one of her worst nightmares.

But the two of them were the only ones in the room. And there was barely anything in the room to begin with, but what they did find proved that, at one point, Hydra operated in the basement of the building. Just like Dawson had said, it looked like a place straight out of every horror/torture movie Q hated. And while she did half expect there to be a Hydra operative waiting for them, waiting to capture them and experiment on them like they had countless times to others in the past. But instead, there was just old hospital gear and machinery all covered with a thick layer of dust. No one had been there for a very long time.

But people had been there. That much she could tell by the leftover coffee mugs, office supplies and worn in chairs. There was a large canister that looked similar to the machine Howard Stark had put Steve in to pump him full of the soldier serum. And another machine that had long since melted, but was retrofitted with straps that looked able to hold down a man of Bucky's size. The concrete walls were decorated in long, deep scrapes that could've only been made by something like the metal arm on Bucky. An old, rickety desk with drawers that seemed to hold only old office supplies, but further investigation proved that one of the drawers had been locked. And since it was still locked however many years later, there had to be something inside.

Q dropped into a crouch, pulling out her knife from her boot to try and break the lock, knowing it would be easier than using a bobby pin on a rusted, seventy year old lock. She slid the blade into the small space where the desk met the drawer and rocked it back and forth with some force behind it until she heard a crack. The drawer popped open and she stood above it to see a thick notebook resting in the center, obviously tossed in there haphazardly and forgotten about. It had the same star that was on Bucky's arm, black standing out against the red leather cover. Picking it up and leafing through it, she found that it was missing a few pages, but had handwritten notes in the same language that the dossier had. She saw the world soldier and arm a few times which made her feel as though they were on the same path. She would have to translate the rest once they were back at the motel.