Shadows of the Past

Part 13

You sit in the back of the jet where you assembled your field office.  Your laptop is open in front of you with two additional screens, one on either side.  You have a stack of files to the left, the top one for you subject and the three underneath for the other Hydra agents.  You find yourself desperately wishing you had a cup of coffee but all you have on hand is bottled water.

Nat & Loki come out of the holding cell, at least you assume its Loki.  He pauses when he sees you starting.  Holding out both his arms wide, he tilts his head a bit to the side and asks you how he looks.

“Like a short, balding scientist,” you say flatly.  You look back down at your papers but not quick enough to see the slight change in emotion on his face.  You weren’t about to tell him how absolutely amazed you were by his ability to take on someone’s appearances so exactly.  He was still a jerk.

“Yes, well... that was the goal right,” he says in Viktor Petrov’s voice.  He wipes his hands on his pants and then claps them together. 

You nod, without looking up at him, “You should probably head out now.  You don’t want to be late for work.”

He says something to Nat you can’t hear and then he is gone.  She closes the ramp and sits next to you at your desk.  “You said you wouldn’t let your emotions get in the way of this,” she says firmly. 

You look down at your keyboard, not wanting to make eye contact with her.  “I know...” you say in a low voice.

“I know something is going on with the two of you but I need you to keep it together right now.  Loki is going to need your help with this next part or he could end up in serious trouble.  We need the other members to not even think twice about him not being Petrov.  That means you need to be able to feed in all the information he needs exactly when he needs it.  You can’t be distracted by whatever is happening in your personal life,” she tells you and you know she is right.  “Normally it wouldn’t be such an issue, Loki can take care of himself but he can’t just fight his way out of this.  We need to keep his cover intact so we can come back with the others.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry...” you unconsciously rub your arm where your bruise is and that draws her attention to it.

She takes your wrist and holds your arm up so she can see it better, “Did Loki do this?”

You try to take your arm back but she doesn’t let you, “Yea, when we found out Petrov escaped he grabbed my arm.”

She suddenly looks very angry and you find yourself defending his actions, “He was just upset, we all were.  I don’t think he remembered how strong he was.”

“That’s no excuse, he never should have done that,” she says.

“I know, he said he was sorry but-” she cuts you off.

“When he gets back here I’m going to-” but this time you stop her.

“No, it’s ok.  I-I want to talk to him about it.  I think that would be better, if that’s ok?” you didn’t realize you felt that way until you said it.

She thinks for a second, “Ok, fine.  But if he ever does that again, you tell me and we’ll let the Hulk slam him around again, ok?”

You smile a bit, you have no idea how many times you wished you could have seen that after Sarah told you about it. “Deal, thanks Nat,” you say with a giggle.

The two of you then wait patiently until Loki is ready for you.

(LOKI POV)
You drive the stolen car back to the bar you had taken Petrov from and switch it with his own.  You go inside his apartment quickly, stopping only to grab his ID badge and briefcase before you make your way to the hospital.

"Testing," you say out loud as you sit at a red light.

"Loud and clear," the answer in your ear comes back.

"Visual check," you say as the light turns green.

"Clear," Y/N answers again. Thankfully the subject wore glasses so Y/N was able to get an identical pair made that had two small pin size cameras in them.  This would enable her and Nat to not only see what you see but scan images and faces as needed.  You drive the rest of the way quietly, the radio on low.

You head straight to 'your' office when you get to the hospital. You lock the door and ask Y/N if she is ready to start scanning. She says yes and you open the locked file cabinet, pulling out the patient files one at a time.  Y/N scans each page into her computer as you look at them, she only speaks to tell you if she needs you to slow down or if the file is complete.

It takes a couple of hours but you finally finish scanning the files, time to move onto the computer. "What's the password?" you ask.

There's a pause and you aren't sure if she heard you so you ask again. "I uh- I can't pronounce it... let me put on Nat for a second," she offers. 

You smile a little, sometimes you forget not everyone has the Allspeak. "Sure, that will work," you tell her. You enter the password Nat got from the subject and you plug in the small device Y/N gave you. It starts to copy everything from the computer and transfers it immediately to Y/N's laptop.

While the program runs, you put the glasses down on the desk and wander around a bit. The office is small with only one window that faces the parking lot. There are no pictures on the walls except for the few diplomas. The space has no personality at all, what a dull room to spend so much of your time in you think to yourself.

"Done," Y/N says in your ear. You walk back over to the computer and unplug the device. So far so good, you think... probably a little too soon.

There is a knock on the door, you grab the glasses off the desk and put them back on before you open it.  One other Hydra agents, Petar Aleksadrov, is standing in the hall, “You haven’t been answering your phone.”

You look at him for a second and then realize you didn’t have Petrov’s phone.  You pat your pockets and act like you are looking for it, knowing full well that it is on the jet... with Petrov.  “Shit, I must have left it at home,” you lie easy enough.

The other man nods, “You’re starting to sound like Ivanov now.  He would forget his head somewhere if it wasn’t attached.”

You both laugh mildly and then he motions for you to follow him.  Closing the door behind you, you both head towards the elevator.  Daniel Ivanov & Yasen Georgiev, the other two Hydra agents, are waiting for when you get there. Aleksadrov puts a key into a small slot under the button for the basement level, when the button turns red he pushes it.  You hoped you would ride in silence but the others begin to complain about various things in their home lives. 

Thankfully, Y/N is able to feed you random pieces of information she has dug up on each of them through their social media accounts.  Her end of the coms translate the conversation from Bulgarian to English in real time so she doesn’t miss a beat. 

You follow the others down a long hallway below the basement level, there are solid metal doors on both sides of the hall.  The doors don’t have windows and each one has a keycard reader.  This is most likely where they keep the people they are experimenting on.  Every once in a while you pass a door and hear a faint scream coming from the room but you do your best not the seem phased by it.  At the end of the hall is a slightly different metal door, this one had a keycard reader and a panel which requires a passcode.  You make sure you watch Georgiev enter the code so Y/N can record it for later.

When the door opens the four of you enter and take your seats at the large round table in the center of the room.  There are already several other people there, you look around the room slowly.  Waiting for Y/N to scan each person’s face into the database she has.  When everyone is seated, a door on the other side of the room opens and you suddenly realize this base must be much more important to Hydra than you had originally thought.

“Oh shit, is that who I think it it?” Y/N says in your ear and you nod faintly.