2014
Washington D.C.
Fury was at the top of the food chain, but above him was someone stronger. More powerful. He had questions and he was demanding answers. Kennedy and Steve had returned to the SHIELD headquarters and Kennedy watched first as Sharon left Alexander Pierce's office and then Alexandria.
Steve was next.
Kennedy sat and waited her turn patiently. In her head, she thought over possible questions and came up with possible answers. When the door opened and Steve marched out, he glanced over at Kennedy before he continued walking toward the elevators.
"Dr. Allen, come in please."
Kennedy stood and tried to calm her nerves as she entered Pierce's office. He closed the door behind him and motioned for Kennedy to take a seat. She expected him to sit down as well, but Pierce instead stood by the window.
"Dr. Kennedy Allen. Skipped a couple of grades, graduated top of your class at Ohio State for both undergrad and medical school. Completed your residency at Oak Crest General Hospital where you later became a renowned surgeon."
Pierce turns and looks at her, "You're one of the best. I'm sure you did everything you could to save Director Fury."
"I did," Kennedy says, "The damage, it was too much. Fury's heart just couldn't take it."
Pierce shakes his head, "I never thought I'd see the day where something stopped Nick Fury."
"I'm sorry for your loss, sir," Kennedy tells him.
"It's not just my loss, it's all of SHIELDs. You've been here for over a year now, correct?"
"Yes," Kennedy answers.
"Why?"
"I'm sorry?" Kennedy asks.
"Why did you want to work here? I mean no offense. You are a good surgeon with a high success rate, but you are also a woman from a small town. No combat training. Why not stay at Oak Crest?"
"I'm sure you know about the incident in my hometown. A SHIELD facility was there, they were doing research on how to chemically alter the brain, in short term, mind control. I lived next door to the KGB agents that stole from that Ohio facility. I was interrogated. One of your people wanted to recruit me. I was only nine years old at the time. I was at a point in my life where I felt my talents would be best served elsewhere. A better question is why not here?"
"I see," Pierce says, "And what of your meetings with Fury?"
That was something Kennedy didn't have a lie for. She thought of her conversations with Fury and any topic that didn't pertain to SHIELD's breach.
"Fury wanted Alexandria Bradley back in the field, so I talked to her," Kennedy says shrugging.
"And your relationship with Natasha Romanoff?"
"I hardly think it's relevant to this discussion," Kennedy states, "We work in two different departments and when we go home the last thing that we discuss is what happened at work."
"I'm sorry if my questions seem invasive," Pierce tells her, "A high-ranking member of this organization was assassinated, and you were specifically requested to be his surgeon."
"Director Fury knew I was good," Kennedy states, "My credentials and my work while being here is proof of that."
Pierce smiles at her, "I like that confidence."
"No one wants an unsure doctor, sir."
"Thank you for coming in Dr. Allen. I appreciate the work that you do and hope that this didn't scare you off."
"It didn't," Kennedy says as she stands.
"An investigation is going on and you may be called in to give a statement but that is all," Pierce tells her, and Kennedy nods.
"I'll assist in any way that I can."
"I don't doubt it," Pierce tells her with a look that unsettles Kennedy, but she doesn't allow that to show. She and Pierce exchange a firm handshake before she heads out of his office and heads back to the med bay where Natasha was waiting.
She was sitting at Kennedy's desk and perked up at the sight of her, standing up instantly, "How did it go?"
"Fine," Kennedy answers, "He more so probed into my background, it was weird."
"We have to get back to the hospital," Natasha tells her, "Steve isn't as smart as he thinks he is."
"You go back to the hospital," Kennedy responds, "I have to go look after Tolkien and Liho."
"They'll be fine, besides we're not going to be gone that long."
"I've practically been gone all night," Kennedy insists, "And Liho is only six months she's still a baby and I don't want her thinking I'm an absentee mother."
"She's a kitten," Natasha states bluntly.
"Exactly," Kennedy states, "She's a kitten, a baby who needs someone to look after her."
"Then we'll call Jenna, she's a stressed-out grad student I'm sure she'd love some face time with a kitten," Natasha argues as though it's the simplest solution.
"I'm going home," Kennedy states.
"Kennedy there are people after you," Natasha says.
"Natasha, we have other responsibilities," Kennedy responds, "We can leave them with Jenna, but I am taking them over there."
Natasha rolls her eyes, "Fine, then we're going to the hospital."
"You don't have to come with me," Kennedy insists, "You have your priorities and I have mine."
Natasha's eyebrows furrow, "And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," Kennedy replies, not in the mood to pick a fight.
They head home and Kennedy takes a shower and changes while Natasha takes Liho and Tolkien over to Jenna's apartment who lived across the hall. Kennedy was getting a feeling that she'd never felt with Natasha before and that feeling was uncertainty and that worried her.
Her hair was still drying when Natasha came back in, "You ready to go?"
"Yeah," Kennedy told her, and Natasha nodded her head as she grabbed her car keys.
They headed to the hospital where Natasha used five dollars in order to get the SHIELD flash drive that was hidden behind several packs of gum. Natasha kept two for herself and handed the other two packs to Kennedy who took them and shoved them in her pocket.
"Cool we got the flash drive, can we go?" Kennedy asks, and just as she says that Steve appears in the hallway, hoodie over his head. Kennedy sighs, "I'm assuming that's a no."
Steve walks toward them and grabs both of their arms, dragging them into a room.
"Don't grab her like that," Natasha orders as she shoves Steve, sending the super-soldier stumbling back slightly. He looks over at Kennedy, an apology on his face. She offers him a small smile, telling him that she was fine.
"Where's the drive?"
"Safe," Natasha answers.
"Do better."
"Where'd you get it?" Natasha asks him
"Why would I tell you?"
"Fury gave it to you. Why?"
"What's on it?"
"I don't know," Natasha responds.
"Stop lying," Steve orders.
"I only act like I know everything Rogers," Natasha tells him.
"I bet you knew why Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?"
"He did it because he thought someone infiltrated SHIELD," Kennedy says and both Steve and Natasha stop their intense staredown and look over at Kennedy.
"He told you about the mission?" Natasha asks.
"Yes," Kennedy answers, "He needed proof and that drive was it. He said he couldn't get anything out of it, but whatever is on there is our evidence that someone's infiltrated SHIELD."
Natasha looks over at Steve and sighs, "I know who killed Fury."
Steve and Kennedy both look over at her this time.
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, but the ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."
"So he's a ghost story," Steve says.
"Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out. But the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him," Natasha lifts her shirt and shows the scar on her stomach, "Straight through me."
"Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."
Kennedy's eyes linger on the scar until Natasha drops the bottom of her shirt, covering it back up. She'd never told her how she got it and Kennedy never had the courage to ask. She would simply trace her fingers over it at night when she held Natasha.
"Going after him is a dead end," Natasha states, as she pulls out the drive "I've tried. Like you said he's a ghost story."
Steve takes the drive from her, "Let's find out what the ghost wants."
Natasha looks over at Kennedy, neither of them says a word, but she can tell by the look that Natasha's giving her an out, a chance to step off the carousel, but Kennedy was in too deep and wherever Natasha went, she went as well.
Kennedy gives her answer by looking away from Natasha and looking over at Steve, "What's the plan, Captain?"
They end up at the local mall. Steve walks ahead of them and Kennedy can tell that he's antsy. He's never had to do the whole undercover thing, but she hadn't either. She'd simply copied Natasha's actions.
"First rule of being on the run is don't run, walk," Natasha tells Steve.
They head to the tech store and Natasha plugs in the drive.
"Hold on," Kennedy says, "Are we seriously doing this here? In the mall?"
"Would you like to take it home?" Natasha asks her and Kennedy narrows her eyes at Natasha before falling silent and letting her do her thing.
"The drive has a level six honing program so as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are," Natasha informs them, her fingers dancing across the keyboard.
"How much time will we have?" Steve asks.
"Uh about nine minutes from now," Natasha says. The screen loads with a locked SHIELD file, "Fury was right about that ship. Someone's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."
"Can you override it?" Steve asks.
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," Natasha says before glancing over at Kennedy a small smirk on her lips, "Slightly."
Kennedy rolls her eyes and steps away from the two of them as she looks around the store.
"Can I help you with anything?"
She looks up to see an employee there, and Kennedy smiles, "Oh no I'm just browsing."
"Well if I can help you with anything, let me know! I'm a total computer nerd. Might be the only thing I'm good at."
"I'm sure you have other things that you're good at," Kennedy tells him, "I mean your customer service skills seem pretty sharp."
The guy laughs at her, "I'm Aaron."
"Kennedy," she introduces.
"This may be a forward question, but would you like to get coffee or something some time?"
"She would not," Natasha says before Kennedy can say anything. Natasha grabs her arm and begins dragging her out of the store, Steve trailing behind them.
"I was making small talk," Kennedy says.
Natasha's green eyes narrow at her, "He was literally asking you on a date."
"I was going to say no," Kennedy retorts.
"Hey," Steve says, "We've got to guys behind us, two across and two coming straight at us."
"Laugh," Natasha orders.
The three of them all fake laugh at absolutely nothing and the STRIKE agents walk by thinking nothing of it. They head toward the escalator and Kennedy spots Rumlow on the one riding up, she looks back at Natasha and nudges her head in his direction. Natasha spots him and then quickly turns to Steve.
"Kiss me."
"What?" Steve and Kennedy ask at the same time.
"Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable," Natasha states.
"Yes, they do," Steve agrees.
"Especially when your girlfriend is a part of that display!" Kennedy says in a hushed voice. Natasha gives her a look and Kennedy rolls her eyes as she shifts toward the other edge away from Rumlow looking forward with no interest in watching Steve and Natasha kiss.
"You can look now," Natasha whispers in her ear and Kennedy ignores her as she steps off the escalator and marches toward the exit of the building.
"Kennedy," Natasha calls after her as she follows her.
"We need a car," Kennedy says ignoring her, "They know what car we drive. They can track it."
"We'll steal one," Natasha says, "Blue pickup, middle of the parking lot."
They head over to it and the door is unlocked, making Steve's job easier as he hotwires the truck. Steve climbed in the driver's seat, Natasha the passenger, and Kennedy sat in the backseat arms crossed over her chest as she pouted like a child.
Steve looked at her in the rearview mirror, "Kennedy, I'm sorry."
"I'm not mad at you Steve," Kennedy tells him.
Natasha sighed as she undid her seatbelt and climbed in the backseat beside Kennedy.
"I'm sorry," Natasha apologizes.
"I'm sure you are," Kennedy says as she looks out of the window.
"You know it didn't mean anything," Natasha says softly, "It was just to get Rumlow off our back."
"Mission accomplished."
"Kennedy," Natasha says, "Baby look at me."
Kennedy rolls her eyes but looks over at Natasha and the redhead smiles at her, "I am completely yours. You never need to be jealous."
Kennedy could never stay mad at Natasha, "Okay."
"You forgive me?"
"I'll think about," Kennedy tells her with a small smile and Natasha grins as she closes her eyes and rests her head on Kennedy's shoulder. She wraps her arm around Kennedy's arm that was closest to her.
"That your first kiss since 1945?" Natasha asks and Kennedy shakes her head as she looks out the window.
"That bad?" Steve asks.
"I didn't say that," Natasha says.
"That's what it sounds like you're saying."
"No," Natasha retorts, "I just wondered how much practice you had."
"I don't need practice."
"Everyone needs practice, Kennedy and I practice together all the time."
"It's not practice, we're literally dating," Kennedy says and Natasha smiles at her, quickly pressing a kiss to the bottom of her chin before resting her head back on her shoulder.
"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety-five, not dead."
"Who are you kissing, Steve?" Kennedy asks, "Do you pick up women at the bar? What's your go-to line?"
"I don't have a line," Steve insists, "And I don't pick up women at bars."
"There's really no one special?" Natasha asks him.
"It's hard to find someone with shared life experiences," Steve tells them.
"You can always make something up," Natasha suggests, "Or you could find someone that you can be yourself around. They might not completely get it, but it's just nice to have that one person that you can always turn to. No matter what."
"That what you have?" Steve asks, looking at Kennedy and Natasha in the rearview mirror.
Natasha's lips quirk in a small smile as she looks over at Kennedy who was looking out of the window, partially listening to the conversation, but focused on the cute baby cows that they were driving by.
"Yeah," Natasha says as she rests her head back on Kennedy's shoulder.
"Steve!" Kennedy exclaims suddenly, "We're gonna have a game night when this is all over, you should come."
"Game night?" Steve asks with a laugh.
"Yeah!" Kennedy says, "It's something to look forward to."
"Game night," Steve repeats with a smile, "I'd like that."
They reach their destination and the three of them get out of the car. There was a gate around it and Kennedy read the sign. They were at Camp Leigh, an old army reserve camp. Steve got the gate opened and the three of them headed inside.
"This camp was where I was trained," Steve shares.
"Change much?" Natasha asks.
"A little," he responds.
Kennedy watches as Steve stares off as though recalling what the camp had looked like all those years ago.
Natasha sighs, "This is a dead-end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even a radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."
Steve looks off in the distance and Kennedy follows his gaze to see him looking at a smaller building before he began walking toward it. Kennedy looks over at Natasha and she shrugs as the two of them follow after Steve.
"This building is in the wrong place," he tells them as he grabs a crowbar and breaks the lock on the door.
They enter the dark building and walk down the stairs. Natasha found a switch and the lights came on, illuminating a SHIELD logo on the wall. Kennedy looked around in slight awe at the fact that she was probably standing in the building where the organization was born.
"This is SHIELD," Natasha states.
"Maybe where it started," Steve says as he walks down a hallway.
On the wall hangs several portraits, she instantly recognizes Howard Stark, the father of Tony Stark who was also Iron Man. She doesn't recognize anyone else, but she does notice how Steve stares at the picture of the woman.
"Who's the girl?" Natasha asks. Steve doesn't answer the question, instead, he walks over toward a wall.
"If you're working in a secret office," Steve says as he tugs the wall back, "Why do you need to hide the elevator."
Natasha uses her phone to figure out the passcode and the elevator takes them deeper into the building where they end up in a room with several old computers.
"You guys sure this is the location?" Kennedy asks as she looks around. She wasn't sure these computers could even boot up to send off a signal.
Natasha walks over to the computer and Kennedy notices the USB port which was out of place. She watches as Natasha places the drive in the USB port and all the terminals lit up and the CPUs began to boot up.
A camera on top of the main terminal moves and Kennedy slaps at Natasha's arm, "That camera just moved."
"Initiate system."
"That computer screen just spoke," Kennedy says.
Natasha goes to the keyboard and types in yes. She smiles and looks over at Kennedy and Steve, "Shall we play a game? It's from a movie Jigsaw-"
"I saw it," Steve tells her.
Natasha nods, "Nice."
The main terminal loads with what looks like a face and Kennedy tilts her head curiously as she looks at it.
"Rogers, Steven. Born 1918."
The camera moves over to Kennedy and she watches it nervously.
"Allen, Kennedy Emily-Louise. Born 1986."
The camera moves over to Natasha.
"Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984."
"It's some kind of recording," Natasha mutters.
"No it isn't," Kennedy states, there was no way that a recording would know the name and birthdate of Kennedy and Natasha.
"She's right I am not a recording," the computer says, "I may not be the man I once was when Captain took me prisoner in 1945 but I am."
"You know this thing?" Natasha asks Steve.
"You captured this thing?" Kennedy follows up with.
"Armin Zola was a German scientist who worked with the Red Skull," Steve informs them, "He's been dead for years."
"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I've never been more alive. In 1972 I received a diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind however was worth saving on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain."
Kennedy shudders slightly at the thought.
"How'd you get here?" Steve asks.
"Invited."
"Operation Paperclip after World War II," Natasha states, "SHIELD recruited German scientist with strategic value."
"They thought I could help their cause," Zola shares, "I also helped my own."
Kennedy's eyes go wide as she looks at the screen. This entire time, since SHIELD's very inception there had rogue members to come and go and when they died, others took their place.
"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve says.
"Cut off one head and two shall grow in its place," Zola says, referencing the monster in Greek legend.
"HYDRAs been living in SHIELD this entire time," Kennedy mutters to herself.
"Prove it," Steve demands.
"Accessing archives," Zola says as a loading bar appears on the screen, "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize is that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly.
"After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited, the new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has secretly fed crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."
"That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you," Natasha says.
"Accidents happen," Zola says, "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. Zero-sum."
Steve lashes out, jamming his shield into the screen. Kennedy swallows nervously as Zola's face moves to another screen.
"What's on this drive?" Steve demands.
"Project Insight requires insight, so I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Natasha asks.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."
Kennedy's eyes go wide and the three of them turn as the doors begin to close. Steve throws his shield in an attempt to stop it, but it proves itself to be pointless. Kennedy tries to keep calm, but she can't at the idea that this might be the end of her life. No wedding. No kids. Not even Reagan's graduation.
Natasha's phone beeps and Kennedy looks over at her, hopeful, instead, she says something that unsettles Kennedy even more, "We've got a bogey. Short-range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops."
"Who fired it?" Steve asks.
"SHIELD."
"SHIELD is HYDRA, HYDRA is SHIELD," Kennedy says anxiously, "We've been working with the bad guys. I've healed the bad guys. Does that make me a bad guy?"
"Kennedy I am going to need you to relax, okay?" Natasha says.
"Right, sorry," Kennedy says as she takes a deep breath, composing herself.
Natasha gives her a nod before turning to grab the drive. Steve picks up a vent from the floor and tosses it aside.
"Face it, Captain, it's better this way for we are both out of time."
Kennedy jumps into the vent, Natasha right behind her, and Steve stands over both of them, using his shield to protect them as the bogey rocks the building. Kennedy clutches on to Natasha and Steve as the building collapses on them.
Once things seem to have settled, Steve tosses the rubble off of them, and Kennedy groans as she reaches up and touches her head. She looks over at Natasha to find her lying unconscious on the ground.
"Nat!" Kennedy says as she leans down to check that she was still breathing. She relaxes when she realizes that Natasha was okay, just unconscious and had probably gotten hit in the head with debris.
"They found us," Steve says as he rushes to their side, "We need to go."
"Nat's out," Kennedy informs him and Steve nods as he picks Natasha up.
"Are you okay?" he asks her and Kennedy nods her head, "Good, follow me."