GROW (BUCKY BARNES x OC)

49

Aurora woke up in a different cell, alone. This one was even worse than her last one, smaller, dirtier, and even darker. She hated it. When she managed to fully wake up, she only had a matter of minutes to herself before the Director came to see her.

Richard walked into the room and gave her a disapproving look.

"It seems you've been acting up, Ms. Stone." He said.

Aurora sat up straighter and just stared back at him. The man seemed to feed off her fear so she was determined to show him none.

"You managed to kill one of my best officials and lost me a good agent in one day. Anything to say for yourself?" Richard asked her.

"Your best official was a dick." Aurora said.

Richard just chuckled.

"He did pose a few challenges, yes. One of them being his obsession over you. You might not be so glad you've killed him now that he's not here to protect you."

"I don't need him to protect me. I protect myself." She replied fiercely.

"Hm, well the smaller room is just the beginning of the new changes around here for you, Ms. Stone." Richard said, leaning against the wall and looking threatening.

She didn't allow herself to flinch or even break her eyes contact.

"Tell me, how did you get one of our most loyal agents to turn against us? Project 937 was an important assist to us." Richard spoke dangerously.

Aurora didn't reply and he just chuckled darkly.

"Very well then, keep your silence. I think it's time we discussed the repercussions of your actions. How about we start off with Olivia?"

She jumped to her feet, fists clenched and seething.

"Don't hurt her. I've done everything you asked me to."

"Yes, but then you killed Mr. Summers and lost me one of my projects." Richard mentioned.

Aurora was a bit surprised at the phrasing of his comment. He seemed to notice.

"You don't know anything about the Keller Project, do you, Ms. Stone?"

She glared at him but didn't respond.

"Didn't you ever think it was a bit odd how you and Project 937's abilities were so similar? Controlling energy, just in different ways. Did you really think that was a coincidence?" Richard laughed humorlessly.

"What do you mean?" Aurora asked.

"In 1936 HYDRA started a project- a project to create an army of enhanced soldiers. The scientist in charge of this project, Ursula Keller, found a successful way to introduce energy manipulating abilities into the human body. We gave samples of her serum to around five hundred participants, though most of them didn't know it at the time. Unfortunately many of the cases were unsuccessful and ended either fatally or didn't seem to work well enough in the participants. Every body had a different reaction to the serum and varying levels of success. One thing was certain across the board though- it only had the potential to work in women."

Aurora couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was she the descendant of one of the test subjects?

"Unfortunately for us, after Steve Rogers pulled that stunt with our bombs over the ocean, HYDRA was exposed. We had to go into hiding and Dr. Keller along with all her research and our files tracking the participants went up in flames as SHIELD bombed one of our bases. Your Captain America cost us a lot of valuable information. We haven't been able to recreate the serum without Dr. Keller, so we began searching for the participants and their offspring who shared the ability. Now it seems that we've managed to track down enough of you to start forming our army."