CRUEL INTENTIONS, bucky barnes

nine

August 14, 2015

Undercover HYDRA Base

Berlin, Germany

Savannah gazed out at the city as she nursed her second cup of coffee. Her cell phone rested on the railing of the balcony as she tapped away at the keyboard with her index finger. Before she hit send, her ringtone went off. She picked up without giving the caller ID a second glance. She opened her mouth to speak, only to find herself cut off.

"I can't talk long," Alina said. Her voice was soft, subdued. Savannah could almost imagine her crouched in a broom closet somewhere in a S.H.I.E.L.D. base, tucked away to make a phone call. "I haven't heard anything. There hasn't been much talk at all. I think most of them don't believe HYDRA is operational."

Savannah sighed and leaned heavily on the railing, her long hair spilling over one shoulder. She sipped her coffee and waited for more.

"Are there more of you out there?" Alina asked.

"Sixty." Savannah glanced down at the street below her. They hadn't had to worry about surveillance in a while, but there was no such thing as being too safe. She and her colleagues had never expected to run into as many displaced agents as they had, and there were still more coming. "We're at a hotel in Berlin. It's slow work. We can't do it all at once or it'd draw attention."

"Oh..." Alina cleared her throat. "Uh, wow."

"Turns out Barnes wasn't the only one who left. We keep finding more."

Alina went silent for a moment and Savannah glanced down at her phone to check if the call had dropped; it hadn't.

"Malveaux?"

"I'm here. Sorry." There was some shuffling on the other end of the line. When she spoke again, her voice was even softer. "Sorry, someone walked by. I should go. International calls are expensive as hell."

"No kidding," Savannah said. She turned back toward her empty hotel room and finished off her coffee. "Keep me updated."

"Always do."

Savannah tucked her phone into her pocket and slid back into her stuffy hotel room. It was still early, the sun having risen over the city just a half hour before. She assumed no one else was awake yet. No one had come to see her yet that morning.

Things had been relatively quiet since coming to Europe. Much of what they were up to last summer had since slowed. Leads on the Asset went relatively cold by the end of March and Alina was their only chance at picking up his trail again.

In April, she volunteered to return to S.H.I.E.L.D. as a double agent, the same job she'd occupied before the fall. She'd been there ever since, feeding Savannah intel from the inside.

It was weeks like the last few that Savannah almost wished she still had Alina there with her. She was perfectly capable of leading the new mass of subversives they'd found scattered throughout Europe on her own, but it was still easier to do with a second in command. Although Savannah was reluctant to even call Alina that, she had felt her absence in the past few months.

A knock came at the door as Savannah tied her hair in a knot at the top of her head.

"Yeah," she said, tucking a pistol into the back of her jeans.

The door slid open to reveal a man and woman. She wasn't entirely familiar with either of them.

The man was new, but that was all she was aware of. It was likely he hadn't even told her his name upon arrival. The woman, however, was one of the ones who had come with her since New York. Her light hair was tightly braided and slung over over one shoulder. A sheen of sweat sparkled on both of their foreheads.