☁︎︎☀︎︎☁︎︎☀︎︎☁︎︎☀︎︎☁︎︎
After heading to the Apple store to see what they could find on the drive and managing to avoid the Hydra corrupt S.T.R.I.K.E. Squad. Steve and Natasha make their way to the given location: New Jersey where the old army base that Steve was trained in was.
Natasha and Steve exited the truck that Steve so casually 'borrowed' from the mall parking lot. The remains of the abandoned Camp Lehigh stood before the two as they carefully made their way through the gates.
"The file came from these coordinates," Natasha told Steve, pulling out her scanner to try and pinpoint the exact signal she had tracked.
"So did I. This is the camp where I was trained," Steve told her.
"Changed much?" Natasha asked Steve as she walked further scanning the area for the signal, but stopped when she turned back to Steve. He stood at the base of the stairs, looking out onto the path and into the woods.
"This is a dead-end," Steve snapped out of his haze, looking over to Natasha who was near the main building. "Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." Steve started and Natasha waited for him to speak.
"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. That building is in the wrong place."
The duo quickly moved toward the building across the way. Steve moved ahead of the Romanov, breaking open the lock on the door with his shield before pulling it open, the two moved inside the dark building. The lights lining the room flickered on one by one, illuminating the faces of the trio. As the lights reached the end, the familiar symbol hung on the wall and came to life.
"This is SHIELD," Natasha spoke as they moved further into the room.
"Might be where it started," Steve said looking around the forsaken room.
They maneuvered themselves into one of the side rooms, stopping in their tracks as they came upon the free frames that hung on the wall before them."There's Stark's father," Natasha commented.
"Howard," Steve said staring at the framed photo of the late Howard Stark.
The order started with Colonel Phillips, Howard Stark, and a small frame of a little girl with familiar brown eyes.
"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked referring to the picture of Agent Peggy Carter. But she couldn't help but closely examine the photo of the young girl who seemed rather familiar but she couldn't figure out why.
Steve looked at the frame of Peggy, then quickly averted his eyes and ignored Natasha's question as they moved down the hall. Nat only followed behind not getting into a conversation about it.
Steve walked forward and inspected the wall of shelving before them. He looked back at Nat.
"If you're already working in a secret office...why do you need to hide the elevator?"
He pushed open the doors of the elevator that hid behind the shelving. Nat walks in scans the keypad for fingerprints on the entry codes, enters it, and goes into the elevator with Steve as the doors open and close. The elevator makes its slow descent toward the underground.
The lights of the bottom room flickered on one by one again as the duo cautiously walked out into a dark room. Walking onto the platform before them, the lights flickered on revealing the old technology that surrounded them which confused Natasha.
"This can't be the data point," She said looking around unconvinced by such a place.
"This technology is ancient." She glances at the computer desk and noticed the modern USB port sitting on top. Walking over to it pulled out the flash drive and then plugged it in as the systems before they began to boot up.
I N I T I A T E S Y S T E M?
🁢
The assassin leaned forward, typing into the system.
"Y-E-S spells yes..." A smirk spreads on her face.
"Shall we play a game?'..." She said smirking at her joke.
"It's from a movie-"
"I know. I saw it," Steve says.
They returned their attention to the computer that had started up.
"Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Romanova, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984."
The screen's lines formed the semblance of a face as the camera placed above the machine moved around their faces.
"It's some kind of recording," Natasha mumbled, but it felt off to Steve. The voice...it seemed a little familiar.
"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..."
The face of Arnim Zola flashed across the screen, and Steve froze. Natasha looked at him with wide eyes. "You know this thing?"
Steve stared before he began to speak. "Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. Been dead for years..." Steve said walking around the computer desk.
"The 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, or my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain." Zola said.
"How did you get here?" Steve demanded.
"Invited, of course..."
"Operation Paperclip after World War II, S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value," Natasha explained.
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own," Zola said.
"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve sneered.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place," Zola recited while showing the HYDRA insignia on the screen.
"Prove it," Steve said gritting his teeth together and growing more irritated.
"Accessing archive..." The screen flashed with photos and videos of Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, followed by footage of Steve in action.
"HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its freedom. 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. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. 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." He said flashing photos of the winter soldier red star and a clip of a young woman standing in the middle of motionless victims.
"That's impossible, S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you," Natasha whispered, not believing her eyes at what she saw on the screens.
"Accidents will happen," Zola said as photos of Howard, Maria, and Emilia Stark flashed across the screen along with a picture of Fury marked as deceased.
"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 deaths amount to the same as your lives; a zero-sum—" Steve's fist collided with the glasses, the screen shattering cutting off Zola for a moment as Zola reappeared on another screen. "As I was saying—"
"What's on the drive?" Steve questioned, he could feel nothing but anger. He sacrificed so much to put an end to Hydra only to find out they were right under his nose the entire time.
"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm..."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Natasha jumped in questioning the man.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."
The doors they came through began to close. Steve fired his shield toward them, but it was too late, as it only came bounding back to him.
"Steve we got a bogey. Short-range ballistic. 30 seconds tops." Natasha called out, checking her device.
"Who fired it?" Steve questioned as his friend looked at him.
"S.H.I.E.L.D..."
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain..." Zola teased the two as Steve gripped the metal grate off the hole in the ground right before them, Natasha grabbed onto the drive and followed behind Steve.
"Admit it, it's better this way. We are all...out of time." Steve did his best to cover Natasha as the building around them blew to pieces.
Natasha's head banged off the ground as Steve pulled her close, trying to protect his unconscious friend all while holding his shield to the ceiling, doing his best to keep the debris off of them.
It took a few minutes for the building to stop crumbling on top of them, but Steve knew there was no time for resting. S.H.I.E.L.D./HYDRA agents would be on them in less than a minute. Steve shoved the rest of the debris off of them and then carried Natasha out. Running out of the crumbled building site as quintets come flying in, to what he's guessing to see their dead remains.
The S.T.R.I.K.E. Team maneuvers around the rumble directing their way with their flashlight.
Rumlow checks under the broker's debris and sees the footprint left behind by Steve.
He presses on his comms.
"Call in the assets."
•••••
『THEA』
It's night time and we've arrived at our designated location where we will receive our next assignment.
We situate ourselves at the table in the kitchen waiting for our higher up to show up.
He comes strolling into the kitchen not yet noticing our presence. As he takes out something from his fridge he finally makes eye contact with the two assassins sitting in his kitchen.
He closes his fridge but keeps his eyes on the both of us. "I'm going to go, Mr. Pierce, do you need anything before I go?" A woman called out.
"Oh no, it's fine Renata you can go home," Pierce says still keeping his attention on us.
"Okay, Night-Night." She says taking her leave out the door.
"Goodnight," Pierce said.
"Want some milk?" He says not wanting or expecting an answer from either of us.
He walks over to his cabinet and pulls out a glass still taunting us but it's ineffective. "The timetable has moved..." He says pouring in his milk.
"Our window is limited..." He continues while taking a gulp of his drink and walking over to us.
"Two targets level 6..." Should be handled with ease...
"They already cost me, Zola, I want two confirmed deaths in 10 hours," He said taking a seat in front of us. Before any other information was given Renata came back.
"Sorry Mr. Pierce, I-I forgot my—phone" She stares at Pierce who is turned towards her in his seat, and then she averts her eyes to our masked faces.
I was going to kill her but the soldier beside me kept my hands from going to my gun holster.
Pierce slowly turns back around."Oh, Renata, I wish you would've knocked." He says grabbing the gun that was conveniently sitting right on the table. He shoots her twice and she falls dead on the floor.
He turns back to us. "You know your assignment, now get it done." He says beginning to walk out.
"Oh and take care of this before you go..."
1890 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙳𝚂