★
Amara, Steve, and Nat were on the move and their first stop was the mall. All three of them had to wear a disguise in order to not be seen by any Hydra agents because mostly likely, they are trying to track them down at this exact moment.
Amara wore some black skinny jeans, white vans, and a grey hoodie. Nat was dressed pretty casual but she was holding in her laugh when it came to Steve. To her, Steve looked like a dork.
"First rule of going on the run is, don't run, walk," Nat explained.
"If I run in these shows, they're gonna fall off," Steve responded as Amara let out a slight laugh, earning a glare from Steve.
"I've actually been on the run before so this isn't new for me," Amara said.
'When?" Steve question.
"That, my friend, is story for another time," Amara clarified. She knew what time she was talking about. Not Hydra. This time was during her rebellious teenage years.
The three walked inside a computer store in order see what exactly is on the flash drive.
"The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up SHIELD will know exactly where we are," Nat said.
"Lovely," Amara sarcastically said.
"How much time do we have?" Steve asked.
"About nine minutes from...now," Nat replied as she inserts the flash drive into a laptop. Fury was right about that ship. Somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands," Nat pointed out.
"Is there anyway to override it?" Amara asked her.
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly. I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from," Nat explained.
"Thank god I don't get this tech stuff. Seems complicated," Amara implied as one of the workers made their way over to the trio.
"Can I help you guys with anything?" he asked.
"Uh, no. My fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations," Nat joked.
"Yea. We're getting married," Steve mocked very horribly.
"I'm the maid of honor," Amara smiled, going along with the part.
"Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?" the employee asks while Steve looks back at the computer seeing that a signal was traced to Jersey.
"Um, New Jersey," Steve replied.
"Nice," the worker nodded his head. He then looks at Steve for a few seconds as Steve starts to think that the employee recognizes him. "I have the exact same glasses," he says happily.
"Wow, you two are practically twins," Nat says sarcastically, earning a slight laugh from Amara.
"Yeah, I wish. Specimen," the worker jokes, "If you guys need anything, I've been Aaron," he says before walking off.
"Yea, thanks," Steve replies. Amara raises her eyebrows at the interaction that just happened but shook it off and looked back at the laptop.
"Jeez, Nat. What happened to nine minutes?" Amara questions.
"Relax. I... got it," she tells them as a signal came up on the screen. The two women look at Steve, seeing that he recognizes the place.
"You know it?" Nat asks him.
Steve sighs, "I used to. Let's go," he ordered the two as he pulls the flash drive out of the computer and exit the store. "Standard tac-team. Two behind, to across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage. You hit the south escalator to the metro and Amara you'll-" Steve began before Nat cut him off.
"Shut up and put your arm around me and laugh at something I said. Amara here, " Nat said before handing her a phone. "Be a teenager or something."
"What?" Steve asked.
"Do it!" Nat said forcefully as Steve put his arm around Nat and laughed as Amara just looked down and pretended to text. The agents passed by without any suspicion as the three made their way towards the escalator.
Amara notices a familiar face just at the bottom on the other side of the escalator.
"Guys. Rumlow. Eleven-o-clock," Amara warned them as they both quickly turned around.
"Kiss me," Nat told Steve.
"What?" Steve asked puzzled.
"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable," Nat said.
"Yes, they do," Steve scoffed as Nat pulls his face down to hers as the two kissed, leaving Amara to her broken down phone again.
"Dude, she did not! No way!" Amara tried her best to act like a teenager. It was hard for her because during her teenage years she was too busy making reckless decisions.
As Rumlow passed them without question, Nat and Steve pulled apart and Amara put the phone in her pocket.
"You still uncomfortable?" Nat asked him with a smirk.
"That's not exactly the word I would use," Steve replied.
"I don't even want to know the word you would use," Amara muttered, earning a glare from Steve as they went to the parking garage, where they eventually "borrowed" a random car.
On the way over to where the signal indicated, Amara immediately fell asleep in the truck, having a dream that she never thought she would have in a while.
"No. Please don't," Amara begged out of tiredness while one of the Hydra men made their way over to her with the head gear they usually put on her to torture her. She knew the routine already. They put the gear on her head, next thing she knew was the incoming pain that she was about to endear.
"На моей отметке. Один, два, три (On my mark. One, two, three)," she heard them count down and suddenly a surge of pressure and sharpness encountered her brain. Amara screams out in pain as she gripped the sides of the table she was lying on.
After a few seconds ,the head gear was removed. Amara's vision was blurred out but she knew what the last step was.
Another Hydra doctor came over and inserted a needle. She didn't know what it was.
The doctors unstrapped her and lifted her off the table. They wrapped her arms around their shoulders due to the numbness in her legs. She was then lead back to her cell.
It only had three concrete walls, and one glass wall. She would always face the glass wall, hoping for a chance to escape. But she was alone. She had no idea if Tony was searching for her. She hoped though.
She sat there in pain and despair. She had no clue as to why Hydra would capture her. At first she thought it was because of Tony and the company he ran. But now, she thinks this is just for their own deeds.
Amara jolted in her sleep and woke up from the tedious nightmare, inhaling and exhaling sharply.
Nat and Steve looked back at her with confused expressions on their face.
"Amara, you okay?" Steve asked her.
Amara nodded and smiled weakly, "Yea." Nat looked at her, assuming what was actually going on. Amara told her about her nightmares a few years back after she was rescued from Hydra. Now, it's just beginning all over again.
"We're here," Steve said as they all hopped out of the truck to looked around the location. By what Amara is looking at, it looks like an old military base.
"This is it," Steve spoke.
"The file came from these coordinates," Natasha mentioned.
"So did I," Steve pointed out.
Amara let out a slight laugh, causing the other two to look back at her. "Oh, come on. That was actually humorous. For once," Amara laughed but earning nothing from the two and she went back into agent mode.
"This is the camp where I was trained," Steve stated.
"Changed much?" Nat asked.
"A little," Steve replied.
Amara looked around the area, confused as to the fact that the signal traced here; to where Steve became The Captain America.
"This is a dead end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off," Nat explained.
Amara looked at Steve, who was looking at a building.
"Steve, what is it?" Amara asked him.
"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place," Steve told the two women as the three made their way towards the building as Steve busts the lock with his shield.
They look around until they come across an elevator. The three rode down to a door on the other side. Steve opened it, revealing a big room with a bunch on book shelfs and technology.
"This can't possibly be the data-point, this technology is ancient," Nat remarks. Amara looks around until she notices a port for a flash drive.
"Give me the drive," Amara told Nat as she handed Amara the flash drive and inserted it.
"Initiate system?" The computer suddenly read. Amara looked at the other two before looking down at the keyboard in front of her. "Uh, YES," she says as she types it into the computer.
Nat lets out a slight chuckle, "Shall we play a game?" she said before Steve looked at her like, really? "It's from this movie-" Nat began.
"- yea, I saw it," Steve said, cutting her off.
The computer suddenly spoke up. "Rogers, Steven. Born 1918. Romanoff, Natasha Alianovna. Born 1984. Stark, Amara. Born 1985."
"It's looks to be some kind of recording," Nat said.
"I'm not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am," The computer told them. Amara furrowed her eyebrows, confused at the thought that a man from 1945 from talking to them; through a computer nonetheless.
"What the hell is that thing?" Amara asked abruptly.
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years," Steve clarified.
"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." Amara took it all in as to what the computer was saying. She kind of had an understanding to some technology, but this? This was a whole new level for her.
"How'd you get here?" Steve questioned.
"Invited."
"Cut the crap man. Why are we here?," Amara said sarcastically as she kept her gaze on the man on the screen.
"It was operation Paperclip after World War ll. SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value," Nat said.
"I thought Hydra died with the Red Skull?" Amara questioned the computer.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place. Why else do you think Hydra captured you Stark? That was until Romanoff came to the rescue."
"Okay, you really need to stop talking," Amara told the computer.
"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."
"That's not possible. SHEILD would've noticed and stopped you," Amara said.
"Accidents will happen."
Suddenly, a wave of pictures flooded the screen in front of them. Amara heart started beating rapidly until she saw photos of the two most important people she loved most.
Her parents.
"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."
"Are you saying Hydra killed my parents? That they didn't die in a car accident?" Amara asked teary eyed. She needed to know the truth.
"Accidents will happen," the computer repeated once again.
Anger boiled inside Amara and she felt her fist clench. She wasn't in her right state of mind until she walked up to the computer and slammed her fist into it, destroying it.
"As I was saying..." the computer spoke again just coming up on the monitor next to it.
"Of course," Amara muttered to herself.
"What's on the drive?" Steve asked.
"Project insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Nat asked.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."
The sound of doors closing forced Steve to try and stop it with his shield, but they were already closed. Amara looked around to try and find a way out, unfortunately, there wasn't.
"Guys, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops," Nat said quickly.
"Who fired it?" Amara asked her.
Nat looked up to them with wide eyes, "SHIELD."
"I am afraid I've been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both... out of time."
Steve quickly finds an opening in the ground and grabs the two girls. A sudden explosion erupts throughout the building as the three jump down. Steve covers them with his shield as best as he could.
Once everything started to dial down, Steve and Amara managed to help Nat and make their way to their next destination.
★
That's chapter four! Let me know what you guys think. Like always, feedback is greatly appreciated.
Hoped you guys enjoyed. Until chapter 5...