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MARY HAD LOST COUNT OF THE DAYS SHE'D BEEN IN THIS PLACE OF BLOOD-SPILLING AND WEAPON-MAKING. She had to rely on Grant's timely expertise. According to him, it was her ninth year here. She was sixteen years old.
It was his eleventh. He was seventeen.
For both of them, it felt more like home than home ever had.
She thought of this as she laid down to sleep, her hands curled around a pair of ragged long ears.
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"Up you come, sunshine."
Madelyn Maverick wrapped her hands around her daughter and lifted her into the air, smiling and laughing.
Matthew placed Mr. Softie in the hands of his daughter, promising her she could always rely on the stuffed bunny to keep her safe.
Memories of this mixed with memories of learning how to take apart and reassemble almost any type of firearm within however many seconds or minutes. Memories of this mixed with memories of learning how to throw the perfect punch or kick, of how to place the right bullet or knife, the right type of poison to mix with which drink or food, the right tactical strategy in this scenario or that one.
All of this logic, this tactic, this physical training―it was to prepare them to be better.
But why would they need to be better when they were already great?
"There's always room for improvement, Mary Mae." Who had said that? Steve. Steve―Rogers.
"Aww, you're just the sweetest, Mary." That was a boy named James.
"Mary, you look so good with your hair like that!" And a girl. Her name was Andrea.
"Hey there, Triple M." Josiah―no, Josh, he preferred Josh, for some reason.
Their voices were thrown together in a cocoon, becoming a hurricane of sounds, of screams and gunshots and quiet lullabies winding through chaos and destruction.
Something was coming. Something big. She didn't quite know what.
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Mary woke with her heart pounding against her ribcage. She glanced at the antiquated clock in her bedside, one of the only accessories in her rather Spartan room. The walls were an unidentifiable metal, the bed-frame titanium, the ground covered in a thin rug made for function rather than appearance. There was a steel dresser full of plain military clothes, a rack of weapons on the wall. And a ragged stuffed bunny thrown onto the floor next to her with her blanket and pillow.
She tiptoed out of the room, past the two sentries stationed at her door.
"Where are you going?" one of them asked sharply. She held up her hands.
"Herr Fischer asked me to go see him in his office," she lied. The sentries glanced at each other, knowing grins curling their mouths. She resisted the disgust trying to move her own lips―Finn was not like that in the least. He trained her, he was blunt and honest and even cruel, but he was not a predator. She was also sure he swung more than one way, but that way definitely wasn't as young as her. He was older than he looked.
She wanted to find out.
And that was bad. Curiosity led to confidence. And confidence led to beatings. Beatings were full of pain, and often signs of distrust. She needed them to trust her. If they didn't trust her, there was a problem, because she trusted them absolutely.
She just wanted to know how old Finn Fischer was.
"No, he didn't." The now-familiar German voice echoed down the hallway as the man himself came striding forward, hands tucked into the pockets of his neatly pressed suit. "In fact, two weeks ago, he specifically requested you stay inside your rooms every night unless it's an emergency. What is your emergency?" The two sentries stiffened, throwing hands up to their brows in salute.
No heil at HYDRA.
"I―"
"Exactly. Now, please stay inside your rooms. I'm sure you already know this, and I know you're well capable of defending yourself, but this facility is a lethal place. You and Grant aren't the only dangerous things we keep here."
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Mary was beside herself. She had disobeyed direct orders, yet again, slippered feet pressed uncomfortably into the cold, hard metal floor. Her ear rested against Herr Fischer's door. What was wrong with her?
"What is it that you want, Wagner?"
"The Führer wants a report on your progress."
"We haven't made much of it. The two subjects are still in training and should be for another nine and eight years each, respectively―we want to inject them on their twenty-fifth birthdays and one of them is a year older than the other. Adding to that is the fact that we aren't exactly a high-tech weapons facility. While we are working on creating a branch of HYDRA more focused towards weapons and technological advancement, and you can tell your precious Führer to be patient, HYDRA is still a separate entity from your little experiment."
"Be careful you do not overstep your bounds with the Nazi regime, Fischer. Your father isn't here to save you this time."
"Well, it's not like he cared in the first place, is it?" Mary practically threw herself down the hallway as the door opened, sprinting so that Herr Fischer―Finn―didn't see her, and neither did this Wagner fellow. She had heard tell of the Nazi political party and a man named Adolf Hitler seizing power in Germany. She wasn't aware HYDRA had allied themselves with these people (though she was now).
Strangely enough, she didn't seem to care nearly as much as she should have, but neither did she not care as much as she wished.
Was she beginning to lose it? Mary slumped against the wall, head banging painfully against ti.
No. She couldn't afford to have these sorts of suspicious thoughts. These were exactly the types of things that had had the first workers kicked out of PROJECT AFFLICTION, Herr Fischer had said. Doubt was a disease. The virus was a gift.
She could not allow herself to be infected by doubt.
Mary straightened and walked carefully back to her rooms. For a supposedly advanced facility, the lack of good security was astonishing and almost laughable. At first she had thought it a prank. She supposed that was what happened when you were short-staffed.
HYDRA wasn't as big as Herr Fischer made it out to be. Grant had eavesdropped on him speaking quietly about an attack on one of their secret facilities by a troop of American soldiers and proceeded to quietly inform Mary immediately. HYDRA's numbers had been decimated. It was going to take at least a few years to replenish them, and to upgrade security nation-wide.
The other subject had, those two years ago, decided he was Mary's companion for everything. He told her things she was curious about, and things she wasn't. He told her everything, which had its times of usefulness.
They soon got into a rhythm. Mary didn't consider him a friend, not exactly. But she could consider him someone she might trust more than the sentries posted outside her rooms, or Herr Fischer himself.
Hopefully HYDRA's alliance with the Führer would be fruitful. Hopefully she could get rid of those sentries, and get injected with the virus soon. If she had to help the Third Reich to do it, so be it.
Perhaps this Adolf Hitler wasn't so bad after all.
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