Nomad | Hawkeye FF ✓

GUN SHOTS AND GOOD COMPANY

HYDRA OPERATING BASE | LOCATION UNKNOWN

JACK and Katherine have been prisoners of Hydra for far too long.

The word 'home' merely felt like an unfamiliar word tainted with lies. They stopped asking themselves if they would ever see their home again, children, or the day of light.

Oh how the sun, warm and soft, would feel against their pale skins. They imagined what the wind felt like, how the sky looked, and how sunset's blossomed into oranges, pinks, and purples. Even recollecting the sounds that birds made were arduous. Every day their memories faded, just like their hope, which by now had turned into hogwash in the back of their minds. "Hope is all fantasy thinking," Katherine would put the four letter word, for she had lost hope long ago, and gave up on its arrival.

Jack would think otherwise and stubbornly state, "You've just lost it, take courage Kate. We still have each other." For he hadn't lost the special spark.

A sudden booming noise rouse the two huddling in the corner of their cell. They were in a three story building, and being held on the first level inside the basement. Two cots were given on either side of the room, one bucket for disposing their bathroom waste, and a small window above one of the beds. Their only source of real light.

Katherine swiped at her greasy and sweaty hair, stuck to her forehead by perspiration, and moved it out of her eyes. They hadn't had a shower for an entire week. "What," she started, "was that?"

Jack, who leaned his back against the wall and held his wife as she laid between his legs, stirred more awake as another sound broke out on the second level. This time they distinguished it as a gun shot, lots of gun fire. The middle of his forehead pinched together, listening. "Gun shots," he slowly said. Another loud bang sent a chill spiraling down their necks. "And that," he said, "sounds like a bomb just went off."

Katherine unintentionally squeezed her husband's knee. "What is going on?" she whispered, craning her neck to hear better.

The gun shots continued for five more minutes until things gradually came to a halt. They both suspected that Hydra came under an attack as per usual, and expected to be moved to another location yet again. But two minutes had passed and no guard had come, no shoes clapped the stone floor down the hallway, no lights flickered on—it was as if life froze for a millisecond.

When panic escalated, and their hearts thumped a little quicker, the too familiar creak of hinges in a door echoed down the hall. Then following next in its wake, were footsteps—not the customary, unconcerned walking footfalls, but the barreling down an alley kind. "I'll go straight, Lang you're with me. Wanda and Sam take the right, Rhodes and Peter go left!" someone bellowed, who forced out orders, which in turn induced the Adams to sit up straighter. A great urgency laid beneath the deep voice, which Katherine and Jack were positive they've heard some time ago, but vaguely could recall.

The pounding of the stranger's running steps was booming down the hall, with a second pair in between, which all the more brought on tension in their bodies. In less then a second, the stranger's reached the foot of the arched doorway that lead into a semi-dark square room. The single lamp on a stool near the arched doorway, when one entered into what appeared to be a cell, barely gave off light. One had to squint as they approached the room to notice anything, which Katherine and Jack seemed to do, but even then, objects remained obscure to the eyes.

Katherine was the first to decipher a large silhouette cautiously slipping through the doorframe, but halted before completely treading over the threshold. A second had past, feeling like eternity, when finally the two dark shapes stiffly moved, toeing their way into the room with uncertainty planted in each step. Their footsteps were difficult to distinguish at this point as they stealthily crept in; one of the two strangers sidestepped next to the lamp.

Half the person's body, evidently a male from Katherine's view point, was illuminated by the dim light. That half Katherine gathered he was in a tactical uniform of some sorts, and as she peered closer, she beheld a gun in his hand at his side. The same stranger turned slightly to the right, and a large metallic arm shimmered in the dark; the silver danced off the yellow glow of the light bulb. Katherine's breathe caught in her throat. "Maybe they're—"

"The Winter Soldier," Katherine said, her voice loud and scratchy, but clear, interrupting the other assailant who spoke doubtfully. The man who she addressed, gradually drew near where her meek voice sounded, and as he spoke, they soon realized these people were not their enemy but were here to rescue them.

"Mr and Mrs. Adams?" he inquired, calling out to the dark.

"Who's asking?" Jack said after a pause.

The Winter Soldier's lip curled jubilantly back from his teeth, as he relaxed his shoulders. "SHIELD." His voice rang over them, muscular and strong. Crossing more ground between them, the metal bars were a breathe away as he spoke, "You're safe now. Come," he motioned for them to get up, "your daughter's waiting for you both."