Timeless

10

As the four were being escorted in a van, Bucky said in a shaky voice, "It was her. She looked right at me like she didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible?" Sam wondered. "It was like 70 years ago."

Steve glanced at his friend. "Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, He captured Mattie as well. Zola experimented on them. Whatever he did helped Mattie survive the fall."

Bucky shook his head slowly. "I should have looked for her. If I'd have known she wasn't dead, I would have looked for her. I should have-"

"None of that's your fault, Steve, Bucky," Natasha told them.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky and Mattie," Steve said.

Bucky, still glancing down, said, "I had her. And I lost her. For forever I assumed. But she's alive. She's alive and she doesn't remember me. She doesn't remember herself. What happened to her?"

Sam noticed Natasha was bleeding from her shoulder and looked at the guards and said, "We need to get a doctor here. We don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck." Suddenly, one of the guards pulled out an electric rod and neutralized the other guard and knocked him out. The guard was revealed to be Hill as she took off her helmet.

"Ah. That thing was squeezing my brain," Hill said. Sam looked at her in confusion. Hill said to Steve, "Who's this guy?"

Rumlow's crew stopped their vehicles and got out.

"Four holes. Start digging," Rumlow ordered. They went towards the van holding Steve, Sam, Bucky and Natasha and as they opened the door, they found it empty with one of the guards left unconscious and massive burnt hole on the car floor.

---

Hill had taken the four to a secret facility. A man ran towards them.

Hill, referring to Natasha's wound, said, "GSW. She's lost at least a pint."

"Maybe two," Sam added.

"Let me take her," the doctor said.

"She'll want to see him first," Hill replied, taking them to Fury who was alive and lying in bed. The four looked at him in shock.

"About damn time," Fury said.

Later, as Natasha's wound was being treated, Fury continued. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache."

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the doctor added.

"Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open, your heart stopped," Natasha said.

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked. "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Hill replied.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury reasoned. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

---

Inside a bank vault, the HYDRA agents fixed Mattie's metal arm and as they did so, she had a brief flashback to her old life as she was recovered by Zola and the HYDRA agents.

"Miss Watson..." Dr. Zola called and Mattie had a flashback to falling off the train at the edge of the mountain with Steve and Bucky trying to save her.