the red widow and captain carter

Out The Ice, Into The Century

Melina Vostokoff felt guilt nearly every day.

Guilt because of what she was working for. Who she was working for. What they did to all those girls. How she'd let it happen to Natasha and Yelena, who had almost been her daughters for a large part of their young lives.

She knew this had to stop. Someone had to notice. Melina was surprised that the government, the police, even SHIELD hadn't shut down the entire operation by now. They were the good guys; how hadn't they stopped the bad guys after all this time?

"Commander Vostokoff?" One of the medical employees asked, cutting through Melina's train of thought. "We're ready."

"Perfect. I'll go get General Dreykov, be primed and ready for his arrival."

The employee nodded and scurried over to his coworkers, grabbing all the medical equipment they needed and heading out of the research lab. Melina scanned her way up to General Dreykov's office and knocked on the heavy door.

"Войдите!" He called.

She stepped inside, hands behind her back and stature straight. "They're ready for you, General."

He smiled devilishly, wiping his hand at the hologram projection and making it disappear. Dreykov gestured for her to follow him as he headed back from where she came in, to the service elevator.

"Tell me about her."

Melina quickly grabbed the file full of her information and flipped it open.

"Born in 1927. Selected to join the Black Widow Ops Program in 1937. Administered with Red Room's formulation of Super Soldier Serum in 1948, put to sleep three months later."

"Has she been thawed out before?"

"Once, by accident. When being transferred onto the carrier, an officer left the chamber unattended and it heated the cooling solution, thus waking her up. She snapped his neck upon breaking out of the glass but was subdued and vitrified once again."

Dreykov pressed the lowest button of the elevator and nodded.

"What was her mission history like? Her skills?"

"Red Room supervisors at the time all gave her top marks in every skill required. She was noted as being exceptionally skilled in her reaction time, and managed to overpower any of the other widows who tried to kill her first." Melina flicked through the pages to find her mission reports.

"She successfully seduced Howard Stark in 1946 under the alias 'Ida Emke', managed to learn his secrets and gain access to his vault of technology too dangerous for public use. Six months later, she was tasked with assassinating Peggy Carter but was temporarily captured by SSR and only escaped after Carter was administered the Super Soldier Serum."

"Where did she go after escaping SSR?"

"Leviathan had supposedly disbanded by that point, so she returned to the Red Room and trained the new girls in marksmanship. She was selected by General Fyodor for trial testing of the serum and was given a full dosage before SSR blew up the testing facility and the organisation was forced to go underground. The subject was cryogenically frozen as an emergency weapon, and since there's been no direct threat of the Red Room collapsing, she's never been used."

"Perfect." Dreykov nodded and stepped out of the elevator once the doors slid open.

"If you don't mind my asking, sir, why now?" Melina questioned. "We have dozens of trained Widows and Taskmaster, why do we need her for this mission?"

General Dreykov stopped in front of the door and turned to his subordinate.

"It's simple, Melina. If you want to kill a Super Soldier," He paused to swipe his ring across the keypad. The double doors hissed open to reveal a room resembling a medical wing. "Send in a Super Soldier."

The room was fairly dim, with no windows to cast any natural light. Lining the walls were cylindrical glass chambers, all empty of people but filled with an unknown liquid. Melina walked behind Dreykov as he approached the medical employees at the back of the room, waiting next to another set of doors with their equipment.

He leaned over to the glowing keypad and spoke into it. "Красная вдова."

It rumbled from the lack of use before sliding open, spraying gathered dust across the room.

Inside the small room stood a cylindrical glass chamber, similar to the countless others in the room, except there was a woman inside this one. She was bathed in red light and vitrical fluid, eyes closed and body stationary.

"разморозить." Dreykov barked at the medical workers. The head doctor pushed one of the buttons and it immediately switched the deep red light to a brighter green.

Melina watched in mystified awe as the ice encasing the woman's body began to melt, and at a fast rate. Eventually, all the liquid gathered and went straight down the drain situated at the bottom of the chamber. The medical worker pressed another button and the glass hissed before rising up and essentially freeing the woman, but she didn't move in the slightest.

"Do it." Dreykov nodded.

The head doctor used a syringe to extract a mystery liquid from an unlabelled bottle and quickly stuck it in the woman's neck, pushing it in before stepping back.

For a moment, she didn't move. Melina, Dreykov and all the medical workers all waited in anticipation for some form of movement.

At first, her fingers twitched slightly. The muscles in her neck tensed and her jaw clenched slightly.

Then her eyes opened. She blinked a few times, adjusting to the light.

"Miss Underwood." General Dreykov finally spoke. She looked down at him, stretched her neck and extended her fingers from their stiff position. "I'm Anton Dreykov, I run the Red Room Academy."

"How long was I under?" She croaked, her voice scratchy from the misuse over nearly 70 years.

"It's 2014. You've been asleep for 66 years, Miss Underwood." Melina chimed in.

Underwood stepped down from the chamber, standing across from the General. She was much taller than everyone else in the room (probably 6"2) and physically bigger, one of the effects of the serum. Even though she towered over Dreykov, she stood with her arms at her sides and awaited his next words.

"We'll have to run a few tests on you, see if all that time asleep altered your abilities."

"I can assure you, I feel better than ever, sir." She reassured, stance never faltering. "What's my first assignment, sir?"

"Once you pass the tests, you'll be sent to New York City." Dreykov spoke as the medical workers administered her with minerals and nutrients she hadn't received over the years.

"Your directive is a familiar one, and should be fairly simple." He continued, turning to walk out. "Kill Peggy Carter."