I sat in the backseat of the truck that we stole...I mean borrowed and took the other braid out of my hair. I like having looseness on my head, I barely ever put it up.
"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" Natasha had her legs on the dash.
Dad glanced back at me, seeing I had no seatbelt on. "Hazel seatbelt on." He ordered and looked at nat. "Nazi Germany." I rolled my eyes and put on the seatbelt.
"I bet you didn't wear seatbelts back then." I muttered under my breath but he didn't hear me. I like living on the edge. Screw uncomfortable and tight seatbelts.
"And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash." He pointed at her feet.
Tasha took her feet off the dash. "Alright, I have a question for you, oh, which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?" She went on.
"What?" He looked at her for a second and then put his eyes back on the road. "Was that your first kiss since 1945?" She asked and I burst out laughing. "That bad, huh?" He had one hand on the wheel. I laughed so hard tears were coming out of my eyes.
"I didn't say that." She fired back. "Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying." They started arguing. "Don't lie to nat, you haven't kissed anyone." I spoke through my laughter.
"Why do you throw me under the bus like this?" He looked back at me.
"I just wondered how much practice you've had." She smirked. "You don't need practice." He argued back. "Everybody needs practice....right hazel?" She looked at me.
"Oh uh yeah, I mean I don't know." I leaned back. "Oh come on you never kissed anyone?" She teased. I swear he almost did a 360 and looked me dead in the eye. "Yes I mean no..." I stuttered. My face all red. "No, nope no one to kiss." I stuttered.
After a few seconds of silence he spoke. "It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead." Oh sure.
"Nobody special, though?" She questioned.
Dad chuckled. "Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."
Tell me about it, I mean I don't really care about romance, heck I'm only thirteen, technically I'm way older but I got a lot of life to live. And I missed out on so many decades. I wonder what it would be like to wake up in the eighties or nines.
"Well, that's alright, you just make something up." She gave advice. I haven't slept in almost two days, my eyes were getting heavy.
"What, like you?" He shot back.
I yawned, they carried on their conversation but I leaned my head against the window, watching cars pass and seeing the green grass all around.
I meant to shut my eyes for a second but I didn't reopen them. Sleep took over.
• • •
"Hey wake up." I opened my eyes to see my door open and dad standing there shaking me awake. I rubbed my eyes and blinked. It was a abandoned military base. But it seemed all too familiar.
"The file came from these coordinates." She held some sort of device. I hopped out and shut the car door. "So did I." We all walked around the base trying to pinpoint where the signal came from "This camp is where I was trained." He finished. I finally realized. "Hey I remember this place." I looked around. "This is where Peggy brought me when she had business to take care of." I walked up to a building a little ways away. "I think this is what we are looking for." I ran up to the door and attempted to open it.
"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place." He looked at the building I was trying to open.
I picked up a rock to try and smash the lock but Dad broke the lock with his shield and they started going inside. "Or that works too." I dropped the rock and walked in after them.
I walked over and turned on the lights they noticed it's a SHIELD office. I already knew that.
"This is SHIELD." Nat looked around. "Where it started." I nodded to her.
We entered a room where i see the old framed portraits of Howard Stark, Peggy and Col. Chester Phillips. I see the chair in the same place that I left it. I really should have listened.
I kicked the chair, it fell apart due to the age of it. "There's Stark's father." Nat pointed to His portrait. "Howard." He nodded. Mhm, Howard. The man who found out who I was and kept it from me. But I understand why, Peggy thought it would keep me safe but it didn't work out too well. "Who's the girl?" Nat asked. Me and dad didn't reply and he turned away to walk further down the room and stopped by a massive book shelf. It looked weirdly placed.
"If you're already working in a secret office..." he pushed the book shelf and it slid open to reveal an elevator behind it. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?" He finished. Me and nat both walked into the elevator. This gives me the creeps but I rather be near my family then alone.
The elevator moved down, but not too far down. The doors opened and old looking computers were around.
"This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient." I didn't recognize anything much but I had a sense of déjà vu.
Suddenly I noticed a small flash drive port. "Nat there." I pointed and she walked up and placed the flash drive in it which then activated the ancient computer in the room. 'Initiate system?' I read across the screen. Natasha typed using the keyboard. "Y-E-S, spells yes." Natasha smiled as the old computer started to crank up. "Shall we play a game?" She looked to Dad "It's from a movie that.."
"Yeah, I saw it." He cut her off, oh I remember that movie, he covered my eyes when the two kissed and didn't let me watch the rest. I still wonder what happened. It was rated PG but whatever.
Suddenly we hear an accented voice speaking. "Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Rogers, Hazel. Born, 1944. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984." An old camera was moving above us, analyzing. I stood between Nat and dad.
"It's some kind of a recording." Nat spoke her thoughts. "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 computer had an accent, I swear I recognize it.
the computer screen showed an old photo of Dr. Arnim Zola. "Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years." Dad walked behind the computer and around.
"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, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain." Zola spoke.
My Brain lit up. "I remember you-" I started to say but a recording popped up.
"Wait!" Zola spoke. Dad walked back up, looking at the video.
"Hi?" A younger me stepped into the frame. "What is a young little fräulein doing here?" Zola walked close to me.
Dad intensely watched, I never got to see me a younger girl. He basically missed my whole childhood.
"Uh, I'm just looking around..."
"Ah okay, What's your name?" Zola questioned young me.
"Hazel Carter,"
I crossed my arms. I haven't heard the name 'Hazel Carter' in a long Time.
"Are you sure? I'd have thought that your last name started with an R"
"Nope, I'm 100 percent sure it's carter"
He knew the whole time of who I was. I blinked, the recording quickly fast forwarded to me walking away.
Zola walked over to a device on the wall, "Bluebird is alone, it's time." He spoke.
"You knew? You planned it all?" I spoke with anger in my voice. Dad looked like he was still piecing what Zola just said together.
"Fräulein, It was planned the moment you were born, we knew we needed more, we almost gave up but we heard of a young girl. With the same qualities as Captain Rogers." He explained.
"But all you did was try to kill me." I slammed my hand by the computer. "What was the point of it all?" I gritted my teeth.
"What did you plan, how did you get here?" Dad had an upset expression on his face and I know why, he just learned that I was almost killed. I never told him how I went under.
I stepped back trying to process the information in my brain, the whole time, they knew, I was never safe, hell they probably watched my every move. All they needed was for me to be alone and I finally was.
I stopped thinking and turned back to listen to the conversation. "HYDRA died with the Red Skull." Dad was sure.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." Zola showed a emblem of hydra. I have no idea what that means. "Prove it." Dad with anger in his voice.
"Accessing archive." the computer screen showed us old footage of Red Skull. "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, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed." Zola showed numerous pictures and film from different moments in history. But the picture of the last guy with the sniper gun caught my eye. He looked too familiar but his face is almost all covered.
"That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you." Nat shook her head.
"Accidents will happen." the computer screen shows us HYDRA had killed Howard and his wife. making it look like a car accident along with the recent death of Fury. I cover my mouth in shock. They killed them because they would have gotten in the way. But Howard....I knew him very well.
"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."
In anger He suddenly smashed the computer screen. I flinched and backed up. "As I was saying..." Zola went to the smaller screen on the right.
"What's on this drive?" Dad cut him off. "Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm." Zola mentioned project insight. That must have something to do with the project insight Helicarriers at SHIELD.
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Nat quickly said. "The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it." suddenly the door starts to close, Dad tries to stop it by throwing his shield in between it but it's too late. I don't handle these situations well. I had panic welling up inside.
"Steve, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops." Nat looked at her phone. I inhaled. "This is were we die right? In movies they never get out of stuff like this." I started mumbling.
"Who fired it?" He looked around for somewhere to go, I was still mumbling in shock.
"S.H.I.E.L.D." She quietly said and tucked her phone into her pocket.
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both of us...out of time." Zola spoke again.
Dad noticed a small opening on the ground, he throws the metal door aside. Nat grabbed my arm and ran to dad and just as the place explodes dad throws himself, me, and Natasha into the hole and protects us with the shield.
Now the shield can only cover so much. I was holding onto nat and dad for dear life but my leg was sticking out. A huge piece of ruble came down. Right on my leg.
I screamed in pain, I held myself up but tears pricked my eyes from the horrific pain in my leg. It was too much. I couldn't breathe so my eyes closed.
(Third Person POV)
Hazel slumped back onto nat. She was completely passed out. But Nat held her up.
Eventually all the caving in stopped and they gathered themselves. "Hazel." Nat lightly kneeled and held hazel.
Steve bent down checking her pulse. He had slight panic in his heart but she was breathing fine. Nat look around her body for injuries and spotted her bloody leg.
"Steve...her leg." Nat took off her jacket and tightly put it on Hazel's wound. Steve lifted her up. "They'll come. Let's get out of here."
Here's today's funny meme!