Broken Remains || Bucky Barnes

Awaiting Our Imminent Death

Nikita's POV

We pulled up to what looked like an abandoned army base camp.

"This is it."

"The file came from these coordinates."

"So did I." I looked at him.

The sun had set by the time we got in.

"This camp is where I was trained."

"Yours is very different from mine. Has it changed much?" I was looking for the data source while Steve kept on reminiscing.

"A little."

"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."

Steve turned around. "What is it?"

"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place."

He used his shield to break the lock off the door.

As far as creepy and haunted go, this place won.

I walked over to a pillar and flipped the light switch. The lights flickered to life. It was a really old looking office.

"This is SHIELD." I could only tell by the SHIELD logo an the back wall.

"Maybe where it started."

We walked through a door which led us to a hallway with files and dust everywhere.

On a wall where three pictures. "There's Stark's father."

"Howard."

"Who's the girl?" She was really pretty. The photo was black and white not to mention the room was dark but I could tell she had olive skin and brown hair.

Steve didn't say anything, he just stared at her picture then walked away.

I saw a few more pictures and one that looked very familiar. The name below read Katrina Petrova. It was a black and white photo of a woman who looked like me.

I took down the picture and took the photo out of the frame. I folded it and put it in my pocket.

I found Steve examining a file shelf.

"If your already working in a secret office," He pulled on one and it started to move like a slide door. "why do you need to hide the elevator?"

I scanned the code for the elevator then typed it into the keypad.

The elevator opened up and we stepped inside. We hadn't pressed any buttons but the second the doors closed we went down.

When the doors opened up again we were in a dark room. Not knowing what was inside we walked in and about half way the lights turned on.

In the room there were hundreds of tapes connecting to one main computer in the center of the room.

"This can't be the data point. This technology is about as old as we are."

I saw a plug for a drive and put our hard drive in there. Everything in the room started to turn on. The camera above the main computer came to life.

initiate system?

I walked over and typed yes and hit the enter key. The computer started to power up. "Shall we play a game?" I looked back at Steve smiling. "It's from a movie that was really..." I started.

"I know. I saw it."

"Rogers, Steven, born 1918." A voice from the computer said in a thick and very familiar German accent.

The camera then turned to me. "Petrova, Nikita born 1917."

"It's some kind of recording."

"I am not a recording, Fraeulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am."

On another smaller computer the picture of Dr. Arnim Zola appeared.

"I am glad to see that you are not dead, Atropos." The computer said.

Steve looked at me for an answer. "It was my name when I was in Hydra. Arnim Zola is the one who created the super soldier serum in Hydra." I said.

"Yeah, a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." Steve said going behind the computer to get a better look at it. "He's been dead for years."

"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."

The computer kept talking.

"My mind, however, was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Steve finally made his way back to where he could see the screen.

"Invited."

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War ll. SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value." I remember Hydra going after a man but failing because SHIELD had already recruited him.

"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."

"Hydra died with the Red Skull."

"Cut off one head, two more shall take it's place."

The Hydra logo appeared on the screen then Zola's face split into twos and went back to normal.

"Prove it."

"Accessing archive."

Images flickered onto the screens.

"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 70 years, Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

The images changed to missions, assassinations. Images of me and the Winter Soldier hiding.I saw a mission I did remember, the association of Kennedy.

"That's impossible. SHIELD would have stopped you." Steve spoke up.

"Accidents will happen."

Images of Howard Stark and news letters about his death showed up.

Steve looked at me clearly wondering if I knew about this. I couldn't meet his eyes.

"Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once a 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 punched the computer screen smashing it to pieces, but that didn't stop the other computer from turning on.

"As I was saying..."

"What's on this drive?" Steve questioned.

"Project Insight requires insight. So, I wrote an algorithm."

"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" I asked.

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

The doors to the room shut and Steve threw his shield as a way to stop them but it was no use.

I got an alert on my phone. "Steve, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"Who fired it?" He asked

"SHIELD." I responded.

"I am afraid I have been stalling Captain.Admit it. It's better this way."

I grabbed the hard drive

"We are, both of us, out of time."