Silent cries

Screams & Baby

(I am not a Hydra supporter, but I thought this song was interesting for the book)

Setting: Annie's horror home/ Hydra base...

Witch told sir on me and I was severely beaten as well as given the punishment of no food for a week; I been warned that another mess up and I'll be given the choice of my cage or cryo-freezing. I can only hope Captain and the Avengers hurry and find this place...what am I thinking?! I'm the red Winter, I should be preventing them from finding this base, not aiding them! What's wrong with me? They've put Winter Soldier into cryo-freeze for now while we wait for main base to send the book with the trigger words. Is it wrong that I want to see Captain again, if it is...then why? Why does it feel right?

Why does my heart keep pounding at the thought of him? And he said Iron Man is my father...Iron Man...he called me that word-kiddo-why does that word make my head hurt?! Images flash through my head, voices echo through my ears...what is this pain? Why does my head hurt so much?

"Pepper!" I hear I child's voice and see an image of the child jumping up from somewhere to hug a woman

"Tony!" I hear the same voice and see the same kid jumps up hugging a man with a goatee

"Wow; take it easy kid," the man says

Images flash through my head along with voices; battle scene and a man I don't recognize, along with a boy...why do these people seem familiar to me? Do I know them? Who are they? Images of a tower and what looks like a diner flash through my head-next a graveyard-gravestones:

Howard Stark

Maria Stark

William Fares

Annie Fares (there's that name again)

Philomena "Mena" Fares

I'm sweating and curled up in pain in my cage as I clutch my head; everywhere I look, I something causes flashes of images and voices in my head and I can't stop crying or screaming in pain. They come and bang on my cage for me to shut up, but I can't, it hurts too much...until, finally...they sedate me and I'm out like a light...
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(Meanwhile @ Avengers tower)

"Are you absolutely sure Pepper?" Tony asks

"I went to the doctor Tony; I'm positive," I tell him

"How far?" He asks

"About a month or two Mr. Stark," I say with a slight laugh

I just told him that we're gonna have a baby...after everything that's been going on, he needs some good news...I can tell he's both excited and nervous. I am too; we've never done this before and he never got the chance with Annie, or her brother. He's been searching for her for nine years and has beating himself up over not finding her sooner when it was discovered just how close she was. He hasn't been sleep well either; I put us on break not because we lost Annie, but because of how Tony's changed since we lost her. Barely eating or sleeping, constantly going between working on his suits and finding her, barking at me and talking/arguing to the wall as if someone else was in the room with us or something. He still does some of those things, but he's eating better now...my hope is that the news of the baby will cheer him up and distract him a bit from everything-he's too deep in working on this case-and Annie did try to kill him...whether she knew him or not...

"Baby Iron Man suits!" Tony exclaims running towards his workshop

"..." he runs off before I even have a chance to yell...wait...what did he say?!
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"JARVIS show me what we've got to work with for an Iron Baby suit!" I call out

"Systems failing sir..." he voice says dying as the lights go out

"JARVIS!" I call out in the dark, "talk to me buddy!"

"What about my sister..." come a low growling voice

"We found her William," I say

"But she still isn't safe yet!" He yells, "and here you are already forgetting her!"

"I'm not forgetting her!" I shout back, "I could never/would never forget her!"

"I don't give a shit if you wanna replace me, but no way in hell are you replacing her!" He yells and glass starts breaking

"I'm not replacing either of you!" I shout

"Systems starting up," come JARVIS' voice

William must've gone off somewhere to pout-seeing as the lights are back and the room is silent-I sigh heavily as I get back to what I was going to do. I never met the kid when he was alive and I've really only spent about two days with the other one...great, I'm already a failure as a father and I haven't actually gotten the chance try to be one yet. Looks like I one upped my old man in that department...am I really going to be able to be a father to the one on the way? I start to pour myself a scotch at the workshop bar when I notice the wishbone necklace and Picture of William that Annie had drawn near by in the little shrine I'd made. I sigh and dump out the bottle of scotch; I walk over towards the shrine and pick up the necklace, I run my thumb over it as I recall that day...

She took it off; she only ever took it off once before, other than that-she never took it off and yet that day, she did-she took it off and she was crying. She was crying and smiling and she kissed my cheek; she never did that during her short stay here...she hugged me once. Pepper grew more attached to her than I did...and I kind of regret that now, but I can't change that now...all I can do is work towards getting her home.

"You done pouting?" I ask

"Yea whatever," I hear William behind me

"Good; now tell me the story behind this necklace," I say

"Not much to tell," he says, "I found on the ground during one of my escape attempt when we were six...it was our sixth birthday to be exact."

"..." I stare silently

"It was rare to see her smile back then..." he goes on, "I barely ever smiled..."

"And when did she stop talking?" I ask

"Well, neither of us could talk every well..." he starts, "but Annie got into a scuffle with some of them trying to protect me and they beat her so badly for resisting that her vocal cords where severely damaged to the point of never being able to speak again."

"But she was talking when they attacked us in Wakanda..." I say

"They probably did some surgery on her and brainwashed her in the chair..." he mumbles

"The chair?" I ask, "that is..."

"A replica of the brain washer that basically created The Winter Soldier," he says, "they've probably worked out its kinks by now and used it on her."

"Kinks?" I ask

"It was a replica, not the original; it had bugs and each test ran on it to fix it took the lives of many of us, "Subjects," including myself," he says, "I was put in the chair three times before I finally died the third time."

"What makes you think she was put in the chair?" I ask

"They were trying to create the perfect weapons; human weapons, soldiers called, "the Winter Line," Annie and I were the first non-super soldier serum weapons that were a success," he says, "then I died in the chair; Annie was the perfect soldier, but she had one flaw..."

"Which was?" I ask

"Her emotions; she had too many and not the right ones either," he says, "but when she got the ability to control blood, it also came with her mass murdering alter ego which she can't control...hence the name Red Winter."

"What about you?" I ask

"They called me the Winter Flame," though they preferred using Annie to me," he says

"What about the one called 007?" I ask

"Winter Witch; she doesn't have any mutant abilities, but she never misses a shot or fails to take down her target," he says, "she was created with super soldier DNA in an incubator so that she wouldn't feel and would comply without brainwashing."