EVELYN FELT herself be thrown back in time when the trio rolled up the old abandoned military base where the signal had led them to. It was no coincidence the signal led them there. Evelyn realized something was coming, whether they were ready or not. It was just too much that was linked to the two supersoldiers. Was Pierce behind it? Was he trying to get rid of them?
"This is it," Steve said.
Natasha nodded. "The file came from these coordinates."
"So did I," Steve said with a wry laugh as they got out of the car. They spent the next few hours looking for where the signal came exactly from. Evelyn could see Peggy and herself standing in front of the recruits. She could see Howard twirling her dramatically while making comments about her lack of dancing skills when it had began raining. The Starks were eyed oddly by Colonel Phillips, but neither so much as cared. "This camp is where I was trained."
"Where I finished my life's work," Evelyn said with a fond smile as she looked around.
"Changed much?" Natasha asked the two supersoldiers, both looking as if they were trapping in their memories.
"A little," Steve whispered.
Natasha held a device, pointing it around the camp. She sighed. "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."
Evelyn noticed something odd as she walked forward to a building near them. She touched the door with a shake of her head.
"What is it?" Natasha asked her.
Steve caught on. "Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks."
"This building is in the wrong place," Evelyn revealed.
Steve used his shield to open the lock on the door. Evelyn smiled tightly at him as the trio entered. Evelyn flicked the lights on, watching as the room became brighter—revealing the large S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the back wall.
Natasha let out a breathy laugh. "This is S.H.I.E.L.D."
Steve looked at Evelyn as she walked into a room, hand immediately finding a large frame of her brother. "Maybe where it started."
Evelyn gulped, brushing her hand over his still face. "There's Stark's father. Your brother, right?" she asked as if she did not already know the answer.
"Howard," Evelyn whispered, a laugh leaving her lips.
She walked to the next photo. Colonel Phillips. "Hard-ass," she murmured, "managed to make the cut."
Finally, Evelyn and Steve made it to Peggy's photo. She looked young, beautiful... in charge. It suited her. Steve stared at it in pain.
"Who's the girl?" Neither replied as Steve stormed to the next part of the room. Evelyn glanced at Howard once more before following him to a random bookshelf.
"If you're already working in a secret office," he began as he shoved the two bookshelves apart. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"
Evelyn, Natasha, and Steve rode the elevator down to the basement level. When the elevator opened, it revealed a room with many old computers. Evelyn walked out first, seeing the main desk with many old notes and files on it. She laughed lowly at her own writing. "Steve," she called.
Steve grinned as well, seeing some of her notes sprawled out.
Natasha looked around with a frown. "This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient." Natasha noticed a flash drive port, and reluctantly, she walked forward and placed the flash drive inside of it. All of a sudden, the computers began to book up.
"Initiate system?" the computer seemed to ask.
Natasha typed and said, "Y-E-S, spells yes." She grinned to the duo, saying, "Shall we play a game? It's from a movie that—"
"Yeah, I saw it," Steve interrupted as the computer came on completely.
Evelyn furrowed her brows at the face that appeared and the voice that spoke. She found herself sent to the past again at the man. Dr. Arnim Zola. He was the reason they were on that train. He was the reason Bucky died.
"Rogers, Steven Grant. Born, 1918. Stark, Evelyn Vanna. Born, 1917. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984," Zola spoke with knowledge he should not have had in a computer, such as himself.
Natasha tried to hit a bunch of buttons. "It's some kind of a recording."
Dr. Arnim Zola sneered back, "I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain and Agent took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." An old photo of Zola appeared on the screen before it went back to his pixelated face.
Natasha looked at them. "Do you know this thing?"
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years," Steve revealed.
"First correction, I am Swiss," Zola said with a mocking tone. "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."
Evelyn looked around. "How did you get here?"
"Invited."
Natasha nodded. "It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value."
Zola agreed. "They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."
"Hydra died with the Red Skull," Steve tried.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."
"Prove it."
"Accessing archive," Zola said as photos of Johann Schmidt as himself and the Red Skull appeared. Another photo went through each founder of S.H.I.E.L.D., even including one of Evelyn. "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 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 finished, making Evelyn realize her organization had never been what she wanted. Hydra was there all along.
"That's impossible, S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you," Natasha said.
"Accidents will happen," Zola said as a photo appeared of Howard and Maria Stark—the car accident that killed them. It was never a car accident. A photo of Nick Fury appeared next. Evelyn was breathing heavily. They had killed her brother. "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."
Steve was ready to punch the screen, but Evelyn beat him to it. Her fist collided in the screen, sending the entire computer screen flying. They had killed her brother.
On another screen, Zola appeared again. "As I was saying—"
"What's on this drive?" Steve interrupted.
"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Natasha asked.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it," Evelyn turned as the door behind them began to shut. Steve tried to throw his shield to wedge it, but he was too late.
"Steve, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops," Natasha said suddenly.
"Who fired it?" Evelyn asked.
"S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Pierce," Evelyn corrected with a snarl.
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Zola said. "Admit it, it's better this way. We're both of us... out of time."
Steve noticed a small opening on the ground. He threw the metal door aside just as the room began to explode. Evelyn had pushed Natasha inside just as a piece of rubble hit her head, knocking her out. Natasha's eyes widened as she realized Evelyn had just saved her life. Steve quickly covered the trio with his shield as more rubble fell.
Evelyn woke up laying on a couch, someone wiping her forehead with a wet towel. Evelyn opened her eyes, seeing Natasha sitting there with a small smile on her face. Evelyn winced as she tried to stand.
Natasha helped her sit up. "You okay?" she asked after a moment of Evelyn trying to gather her wits.
Evelyn paused a moment before sighing. "I just never expected everything I've ever done to mean nothing."
"Don't say that," Natasha whispered to her. "You created something amazing. You helped keep the world safe dozens of times without even knowing... this is messed up, sure, but it's not your fault."
"Everything keeps pointing back to Steve and I," Evelyn said as she stood shakily. "I'm getting tired of my past biting me in the ass everytime I'm just a smidge away from moving on."
Natasha said nothing else as she guided Evelyn into a room to change. After Evelyn had gotten the debris out of her hair, she tied it into a messy braid before following Natasha into the kitchen where a man was serving food.
His eyes went wide at Evelyn. "Hey, glad to see you're awake. I'm Sam Wilson."
"Evelyn," she said a bit less enthusiastically. "Any medicine? I feel like my head is about to explode."
Sam nodded as he got it for her. As the quartet ate in silence, Evelyn could only think of all of her thoughts being to create Hydra all over again. Project Insight was going to do something horrible. Pierce as their leader.
"So, the question is: who in S.H.I.E.L.D. could launch a domestic missile strike?" Natasha asked.
"Pierce," Evelyn said with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," Natasha finished.
"But he's not working alone. Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star," Steve reminded them.
"So was Jasper Sitwell," Evelyn said, cringing how she helped him so easily.
Steve nodded with a sigh. "So, the real question is: how do the three most wanted people in Washington kidnap a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer in broad daylight?"
Sam walked into the kitchen again with a file in his hand. "The answer is: you don't."
"What's this?"
"Call it a resume," Sam answered.
Natasha picked up a photo of Sam. "Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you," she said before looking at Steve. "You didn't say he was a para-rescue."
"Is this Riley?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah."
"I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use, a stealth chute?" Natasha asked.
"No. These," Sam said as he dropped another file on the table that read: Falcon.