Adelaide heard shooting and saw Klaue's henchmen running up the stairs behind her. She ran towards the army of armed men and kicked one down, the rest following him like dominos.
She saw the blur of a man and shot at him. He caught all of her bullets.
Adelaide felt someone behind her but when she turned she was no longer inside the scavenger ship.
She was standing over a pool of ice cold water. A young girl was being held under, her body shaking and struggling against the hands that held her down.
"Can you control her?" Adelaide's voice asked. A stern and clean woman stood next her.
"Only the ones that survive." She answered coldly. It was true, few girls actually survived for the graduation ceremony.
Only four survived from Adelaide's class. She didn't even remember the girls.
"You were too important to lose control of." Adelaide turned her head sharply to the woman.
Her attention returned to the pool when she girl was let up for air. The man still holding her pulled her onto the dry floor.
The girl quickly stood. Despite the pale tint to her skin and her blue lips, she refused to shiver from the cold.
"Mission report?" The man asked in Russian.
Adelaide watched the girl lift her head, her shoulder-length hair no longer covering her face. "Mission complete." The familiar face was blank, no indication that she was in pain or cold. It was her.
But Adelaide knew she was cold. She knew she was in pain and she remembered this day. But it wasn't like this.
She had returned from a mission in Italy, infiltrating the military camp just below the Alps.
As Adelaide forced her brain to remember that specific mission, she came up blank. She didn't remember breaking in, getting information out of the base, or what caused her to be tortured so horrifically.
When she returned from the mission...
What was the mission?
"The soldier will certainly be dead by morning." The woman told the man, ignoring the younger girl next to him.
Adelaide circled the pool, coming up next to her younger self. "What soldier?" She didn't know who she was asking, but she reached for her own face.
This wasn't her memory, it was warped. It had to be. That witch was in her head. Adelaide's eyes widened as Steve appeared in front of her.
He had a hold of her shoulders but she grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm to the side and throwing him over her shoulder. When he landed on the floor she threw her knee into his back.
She looked at him with a blank look. She stood and helped him up. Together they sat on the floor, both of them looking into a past
Clint was holding Natasha at the bottom of a stairwell.
Clint was the only one not affected. He helped the team to the jet and got them all settled. Tony returned with Bruce at the same time.
Clint sat up front and flew the jet while everyone was silent in the back.
In the morning when he landed they all looked outside. He brought them to a small farmhouse and guided them all inside. Steve and Adelaide looked at each other. He knew she was still confused, she didn't look entirely present.
"Honey?" Clint called out as they walked in. "I'm home. Hi. Company. Sorry, I didn't call ahead." He told a woman when she came around the corner.
"This is an agent of some kind." Tony said when they kissed. Looking at Thor.
"Gentlemen and ladies, this is Laura." He introduced them to a woman who had to be his wife.
"I know all of your names." She laughed.
Two kids ran down the stairs of the house. "Dad!" They both smiled.
Adelaide watched him pick them up and give them both a hug and kiss. The little girl laughed when her dad picked her up. She paid no mind to the strangers in her house, she only saw her dad. That's how a father should be, Adelaide thought to herself.
"Sorry for barging in on you." Steve told Laura.
"Yeah, we would have called ahead, but we were busy having no idea that you existed." Tony said with his arms crossed.
"Yeah, well, Fury helped me set this up when I joined. He kept it off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files. I'd like to keep it that way. I figured it's a good place to lay low." Clint explained.
Adelaide saw Natasha talking to Laura. She had a bump and was clearly expecting a third child. Adelaide envied this family.
Thor walked away and Steve followed him.
YOU ARE READING
Red
FanfictionLosing him was blue, like I'd never known Missing him was dark gray, all alone Forgetting him was like trying to know Somebody you never met Adelaide Herrmann has so many secrets and is good at hiding all of them. Only one person knows the real Ad...
