Since 1945. (Marvel 'Winter Soldier' Fanfiction)

Chapter 2

AH, CHAPTAH. I'm thoroughly enjoying writing this piece; I'm having so much fun. I hope you guys are enjoying this piece as well! Feedback, comments, votes— it's all appreciated. Thanks for reading!

"Am I on Pranked? Is that what this is?" Anna demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. She glared at the actors before her, thinking the prank had gone too far. Her head was actually beginning to hurt from the force of her confusion. Upon waking, she'd started rapidly firing off questions, immediately jumping to the conclusion that Carl had her put on a hidden camera t.v. show with her favorite actors. That hope was dwindling fast. 

"You're not on Pranked. I'm Natasha, I have no idea who Scarlett Johansson is," the Black Widow (or possibly sadistic actress), soothed, but Anna was having none of it. Chris Evans stood behind Scarlet, Downey Jr and Sebastian right behind him. 

"Look, this isn't funny! It's embarrassing that I'm sorely tempted to believe you, but I've had enough! If you're joking, quit it!" Anna shouted, nearly hysterical. 

"None of us are joking, I swear. Are you alright? Are you injured?" Chris spoke up, eyes narrowing in on her head. 

"I do not have a head injury—" she began, only to freeze, eyes widening comically in absolute terror. The supposed Avengers waited with baited breath to see what the unconventional intruder would do. Anna, more or less, exploded. "OH MY GOD, I'M DEAD, WHICH MEANS YOU PEOPLE SHOULD BE TOO, BUT I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT, OH MY GOD, I promised Carl I'd record the next episode of Supernatural for him and now I can't, I'M A HORRIBLE FRIEND, my cat's going to die, and I'm going to fail college, do you know how many SAT's I sat through to get a perfect score, HOLY FU—"

"Woa, woa, woa, hey!" Robert shouted, causing her word vomit to grind to a halt. "Just calm down, alright?" Anna, who now cupped her head between two shaking hands, nodded silently, eyes still wide and panicked. "Now, if you're not with HYDRA, we may just be able to figure all of this out. But if you are, I'm in no type of shape to stop Spangles and his metal-armed attack dog from vaulting over this couch. Now I'll only ask you once: Are you with them?" 

Anna felt like crying, laughing, and throwing herself out of a nearby window all at once. With her brain a jumbled mess and her emotions rocketing all over the place, she really was in no shape to give a solid, informative answer. With Black Widow or Scarlett or whoever the hell anyone here really was eyeing Anna with intense scrutiny, and Sebastian glaring with the force of a laser cannon, only one thing popped into mind— it was the only logical answer she could really get out. "No," muttered, completely miffed, still cupping her head, "I mean, have you seen how much of an asshole Alexander Pierce is?"

Robert stared at her for a moment, completely dumbfounded, before bursting into a round of laughs. Sebastian didn't look amused, per say, but he didn't look murderous anymore either. Anna breathed a small sigh of relief at that. She had a feeling that if she wasn't actually dead, and if all of this was real, there wouldn't be any lawsuits she could file for being beaten to a pulp by an ex-soviet assassin. Well, she hoped ex-soviet assassin. 

Her head began to pound again as she tried to wrap her mind around her current situation. Scarlett was still eyeing Anna with distrust, Chris nearly mimicking her expression, and she wanted to shout that 'no, she's not HYDRA, she's a horribly confused college student, who may or may not be dead, or who may or may not have fallen into an alternate universe a.k.a the MCU and she wants answers as much as you do but she's pretty sure she's gone crazy.' With one last huff Anna sank down onto the floor, and placed her forehead against her knees. 

"I just wanted to go home and eat pizza..." she whined, picking her head up to glare at Robert who was still laughing quietly to himself. 

"So, what happened? How'd you wind up here?" Scarlet asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She still looked suspicious but now she was also mildly curious. At this point, a feeling of dread had begun to settle into the pit of Anna's stomach— she was now almost wholly convinced that this wasn't a joke and that scared the shit out of her.

"I was walking down the street, talking to my friend Carl on the phone, I closed my eyes for two seconds, and when I opened them, I was standing in the kitchen," she explained, and the disbelieving looks she got were absolute infuriating.  "Look, I don't even know how it happened! I'm not lying! Hook me up to a polygraph if you want to check, I'm just as confused as you, except I might be in an entirely new universe and that really sucks," Anna huffed out. 

"Sir, I have video evidence supporting the young woman's claims," came a disembodied voice from what appeared to be the ceiling. 

"Is that JARVIS?" Anna asked hesitantly, earning a quirked eyebrow from Robert. Tony. Eh, you couldn't really the tell two apart in normal circumstances.

"JARVIS, play the video," he ordered, opting to ignore Anna for a moment. A hologram materialized across one of the windows, the lights dimming slightly to provide a clearer view. On the screen her impromptu entrance played out: the kitchen was empty for all of a minute, before Anna suddenly appeared on screen, jabbering away, before abruptly freezing. It continued to display her shocked form as she gravitated toward the living room, and from the hallway to her left strolled Bucky, who, as soon as he saw her, shouted out and drew a gun. The rest everyone else pretty much knew. 

"See!" Anna exclaimed, waving her arms wildly at the screen. "I just...appeared, and last time I checked I didn't have the powers of teleportation and you," she said, waving one accusatory finger at everyone, "were actors."

"Well, it looks like her story checks out...at least some of it," Steve said, albeit reluctantly. He cast a worried glance at Bucky, who was now analyzing Anna like a bug under a microscope. Talk about nerve wracking. Anna took a deep breath, trying to calm down before she spiraled into a full out panic attack. 

"What else could I possibly do to convince—" she began to say, before her mouth snapped shut and the figurative light bulb started shining above her head. "I know exactly how!" she announced, walking over to her book bag and pulling out a laptop. 

"What're you doing?" Tony asked, as she plopped herself down on the couch, staying a respectable distance away from Natasha. 

"You have wifi, right?" she asked, opting to ignore Stark's comment like he had ignored hers. 

"Yeah..." Tony said, as he watched her power up her machine, not failing to note how Bucky was watching everything on the screen with a hawk like precision. If it was a trap, he'd catch it. 

Everyone watched in silence as she opened up what appeared to be iTunes, before clicking on a movie titled 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'. This immediately caught their attention, but they didn't have long to dwell on the films cover art before Anna began scrolling through the menu, hurriedly clicking on 'extras'. 

"What exactly are you going to show us?" Steve asked, now thoroughly unnerved. He had a strong hunch that this movie, though donning his code name and Bucky's, would be nothing like the WWII propaganda films. 

"I don't think you'll believe me any other way," Anna said, turning up the brightness on the screen, "so I think it's time that I showed you the Gag Reel."