Don't You Worry Child

Don't Put Dirt On My Grave Just Yet

Chapter Summary: Agents of the Red Room try to take over S.H.I.E.L.D's Avengers training facility and Louise's big secret is about to be revealed.

Soundtrack: Don't Put Dirt On My Grave Just Yet by Hayden Panettiere

She couldn't understand why Steve was telling her that she didn't need to apologise. This was her fault wasn't it? If she had fought harder then she wouldn't have been... she couldn't even think of the word for it. She wasn't innocent, not in the least bit. She couldn't make herself say anything more other than what she'd already said and she knew that Steve would instinctively know what she meant. So, instead, she curled into him, glad to hear his heartbeat – at least that would never change.

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He was going to kill Volkov, he decided. Samantha didn't deserve this, it was killing him that they hadn't found her in time for her to be spared this suffering. He found the cell Volkov had been moved to and walked in, shutting the door behind him. "Ah, you must be the Super Soldier, Steve Rogers, correct?" Volkov said and Steve glared at him "You know she used to tell herself that you would save her? She used to say it in her sleep 'Steve will save me, Steve will save me' it was so annoying. We had to tape her mouth shut when she slept," Volkov said and Steve snapped.

He grabbed a hold of the Red Room recruiter's neck and pushed the man against the wall "How dare you? You bastard!" Steve yelled, wanting so much for the man's head to fall limp against the wall "Samantha Stark is one of the best people you will ever have the courtesy of knowing and you treated her as though she were some play thing. She didn't deserve any of what you did to her. You are the scourge of the earth!" he heard the door click open and turned around to see Natasha in the doorway.

"Steve, stop. She wouldn't want this," the red head warned and Steve let go of Volkov, the Russian's body going limp against the wall "Go, see her. I'll explain it to Fury," she told him and Steve walked out, leaving Natasha to deal with his mess once again.

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Louise Taylor-Hall was here on assignment, she had to remember that. She couldn't get close to anyone, she just had to give the illusion of being close to them. That was what the Red Room wanted. HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. had almost worked, the Red Room's infiltration would work. That, they were convinced of.

She'd been tricked into joining the Red Room really. It had happened while she was away at finishing school in Switzerland, that old place that aristocratic young British girls were given opportunity to attend. She had been approached by a man while on a day trip to Zurich, he had told her that MI5 were looking for someone just like her: beautiful, well-cultured, upper class. He'd appealed to the entirety of her ego, even the piece of her she didn't like people to know about. Well, she'd signed up immediately. She'd been told that the Red Room was a secret sector of MI5 when she'd joined up. She'd believed them. Knowing what she knew now, she didn't care that they weren't in fact a sector of MI5, they were better. She'd seen the lives that the Red Room had saved and she had seen the list of those S.H.I.E.L.D. had killed.

The Red Room had taken advantage of S.H.I.E.L.D's desperate need for agents and – with a faked but completely watertight CV – she had slept her way in. When S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent her in on this mission – to retrieve the kidnapped children, her counter-mission from the Red Room had been simple: Allow the children to be saved but make sure that she got close to one Samantha Stark.