A Birdie Lost in Time | Bucky Barnes

|47|

Marlow's anger seemed to fester with ever hour that passed.

She'd been able to gather some information on Nagel—or at least who she was pretty sure was Nagel. If she was right, he was one of the scientists hired to work in the nineties. The files she found were sporadic, so it was hard to know exactly when his work with Hydra ended.

Or if it did.

She couldn't get over the nagging thought that Hydra wasn't actually gone; that somehow part of them survived.

If she wanted to know, she needed more information on him and the rest of Hydra, so she started pulling encrypted files from the beginning of the 2000's to begin her search. Even if they weren't still active, those files might give her leads to who else might be working on the serum now.

Although, that didn't answer her question of why it suddenly appeared. Or what these Flag Smashers had to do with it.

If Hydra—or someone else—had manufactured a serum, why would they give it to a rebel organization? And how long had they been super soldiers for?

She blinked away the burning of her eyes as she pulled up the files on the Flag Smashers, mulling over her questions and hoping answers would be somewhere in the pages. But as she finished scanning the first page, her phone began to ring.

Glancing over, she answered and put the call on speaker. "Hello?"

"Hey," Bucky mumbled.

"Found anything?" she asked curtly.

"You're still mad?"

"It hasn't even been twelve hours; yes, I'm still mad."

"Who knew you were one to hold a grudge?" he joked.

"Have you found anything?"

Bucky let out a long breath. "It's been a rough day; can you at least laugh a little?"

She frowned in worry. "What happened?"

"We found Nagel... and Zemo shot him."

Her head shook at his statement. "That fucking prick—"

"Well, that fucking prick was the one who saved our asses when we ran out of bullets, so maybe save the strong words."

"He deserves a lot more than strong words. Nagel was the key to getting any information on this shit; what if Hydra is still active and we lost the chance to learn about them? Or if there is more serum—"

"This isn't Hydra. It's someone called the Power Broker. Nagel was hired by Hydra after the Winter Soldier program ended and once they were taken down, he was hired by the CIA to continue the work. He was blipped and his project was sidelined so when he came back, he was hired by the Power Broker to finalize the serum. He made twenty doses which were stolen by Karli Morgenthau."

"Did he say who the Power Broker is? Where exactly we could find him?"

"No. That was all of the information he knew."

"You mean all of the information he was able to get out before Zemo killed him?"

"Marlow, please."

"What's the plan now?"

"We're regrouping and getting out of the city. From there, we're not sure, but we need away from bounty hunters."

She rubbed her hand down her face. "Are you guys alright? What happened today? You said you ran out of bullets?"

"Bounty hunters happened. They got word of where we were and attacked. I think they had a bazooka," he joked lightly despite the severity of the situation.