Avengers: The Recruits (On Hold)

Chapter 26

Hello readers! Please read the Author's Note at the end. Thank you!
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  Victor's POV:
My body grows numb as I slowly walk towards my room. I clench my fists as I brace myself against a wall outside my door for support. Why? I ask myself. Why her?
I feel hollow inside as I open my bedroom door and close it behind me as I step into the room. I approach my bed with clenched fists as my eyes begin burning. I groan in anguish as my heart feels as if it has been torn and slashed violently in my chest. I find myself grabbing ahold of a pillow, and I give it a punch, and another, and another.
   I keep punching until my face is soaked from the tears that continue pouring out of my eyes. Soon the pillow grows limp and flat beneath my fists, and I then chunk it across the room. I collapse onto my bed while shoving my face into another pillow. Visions of the torture I received at the Hydra base play throughout my head. I suddenly feel every needle sink into my skin, every slash of a knife cut into me, every shock of a taser pass through me, and then came the "healing screen" which healed all my injuries...only to repeat the process again and again.
   Images of her would appear on the screens in front of me during the whole process as they tried to convince me that all of this was happening because of her, and I eventually did. I tried to kill her. I tried to kill her, and now she's dead. She's dead.

   Memories play through my head as I recall the many times that I would sit on the couch with her and just hold her hand. Images of her laying her head on my chest fill my vision as I remember gently running my hand over her soft long hair. The feeling of my hands traveling up towards the base of her head as I kissed her lips makes my heart race, perfection. I never felt like this before. I never felt the need to see someone, to be near someone, to hold someone like this before. I love her...and now she's gone.

   And that is what I did for the last 3 months, lay in bed and think about nothing except her. I now find myself standing in front of her bedroom door, somehow I managed to crawl out of my bed and my mourning. Instinctively I go to knock, but I stop myself before I even touch the door. Maybe I shouldn't do this, but I don't listen to myself as I slowly reach for the door knob and then turn it.
Her door opens slowly, and I am met with the light from the late morning sky which seems too bright for this moment. My breathing stops as I gaze at her bed. The covers are neatly folded, but there is a slight dent in her pillow from where she last laid her head. I stand in the open doorway afraid that if I move, I might mess up everything and not let her belongings remain as how she left them.
Without thinking, I slowly take a step into her room and notice a ruffle in the blue covers at the foot of her bed. Possibly where she sat the morning of the mission. I find myself walking towards her bed, my hand hovering barely a centimeter above the cover. She always liked the color blue. I pull my hand back to me and begin moving towards her desk, my feet having a mind of their own today.

Agent Romanov's POV:
   The team...the kids were hurt. They all took a blow to the gut when the realization of the news they had just heard finally set in. I remember standing in a dark, quiet room watching the camera feed. Earlier, something inside me felt...almost broken as I remember watching Bucky and Steve listen to the recording Shield got from the kids' comms.
Steve had to be there with him, he was after all, the guy who brought the 'old' Bucky back. He had to be there or else no one would've been able to stop Barnes. I remember having to sit down after hearing the news, and that's when Barnes almost flipped.
   That's when the shouting began.
   "I'm going to kill him!" He shouted as he slammed his metal fist into the table, leaving a large cracked dent.
   "Buck," Steve tried.
   "You don't know what it's like!" Bucky shouted back "I lost her mother, and now her! I can't do this."
   I looked up and found Barnes with tears in his eyes as he turned his gaze to the floor, and then he clinched his fists. Muscles shaking in his arms as he looked back up at Steve. "I'm going after her."
   "You can't," Tony butted in.
   "The hell I can!" Bucky turned around quickly, as if he was ready to fight anyone in his way.
   "You can't," I said from the table "we don't even know where they took her."
   We locked eyes, and his blue eyes shined bright with hurt and despair. He then pushed past Steve and left the room, with Steve trailing slowly behind him.
   "We can't stop him," Tony groaned as he took a sit at the end of the table with his head in his hands.
   "Why should we?" I question as I grow annoyed at Tony "we all would do the same if it were our children."
   "You don't have a child," he argues "you have a clone."
   "Makes no difference," I seethe before I push myself away from the table and quickly walk out of the room.
   That was all three months ago, and now I stand in front of Bucky's room. Without thinking I knock three times.
   "Go away Steve." I hear him growl from somewhere inside.
   I knock even louder.
   "I said go away!" Suddenly the door yanks open, revealing a tired, shirtless soldier. "Oh."
   "I'm not Steve," I say. I take a step past him and into his dark room.
   "By all means let yourself in," he sarcastically grumbles.
   "Thanks," I respond with no expression in my voice before I take a look at my surroundings. The covers on the bed lay sprawled out and messy, a few shirts lay here and there on the floor, and I spot untouched food on a desk.
   He closes the door and then makes his way back to his bed.
   "I would ask how you're doing, but..."I trail off and make a motion with my hand at the mess.
   "I hope you're not here for counseling," he says clearly annoyed.
   "I'd be the wrong person if I was."
   "Then why are you here?"
   I turn my green eyed gaze to him and I say what comes to mind "I don't know."
   He sits up from his position and raises an eyebrow. He then rolls his eyes and says "don't lie. Why are you here?"
   I bite the inside of my cheek before I say "because you could use a friend."
   "I have Steve for that," he says.
   I throw my hands up annoyed before I turn to face a window. Why am I here? For once, the famous Black Widow doesn't know something...or maybe I do, but I just won't admit it.
   I hear the weight on the bed shift and then he comes to stand beside me as we look out the window. He lets out a heavy sigh before asking almost in a whisper "why are you really here?"
   My eyes follow the cars down below as I say in a low voice "because maybe I care."
   We grow quiet, both watching the morning rush hour traffic. "Care about what?"
   "You." I bluntly answer as I peel my eyes away from the streets below, and to find his blue ones staring back at me with thousands of questions in them.
   "I hope this isn't a game of yours," he says with eyebrows furrowing together and then slowly relaxing, a warning glare.
   "I hope not either."

  Meanwhile somewhere in Europe...
  Unknown POV:
   I enter the base with folders stored neatly in my black brief case. The sound of my shoes hitting the floor echo slightly between the concrete walls as I make my way down a staircase. Today's the first day of my 'new job'.
   Ten minutes later, after finally getting through security, I am greeted by yet another security guard.
   "Miss Danel," he says in a thick foreign accent "follow me."
I say foreign accent, but if only he knew that I am the real foreigner here.
"You're office is not set up yet, due to the reason of us having to relocate," he says while I follow behind him.
"Relocate?" I question while using a French accent that I had to learn for my cover after accepting this task, "But I was told that this was a secure location."
"It is," the guard replies "but with recent events we need to move...to keep Shield off our scent."
I raise my eyebrows and nod my head while humming in agreement. I follow him down corridor after corridor, quietly taking note of all the doors and exits.
   "Here we are," the guard says as he slows his pace and comes to a gradual stop in front of a set of silver doors. "Dr. Zola will see you now."
"Thank you," I say before approaching the doors, which slide away automatically. I step into what looks like a laboratory and am met with people in labs coats rushing about the room. I approach the railing of the balcony I now stand on and gaze at the scene before me. People in grey jumpsuits move containers towards an unknown exit as a few people in dark suits walk together in my direction, with a man wearing a lab coat.
The man in the lab coat glances at me and then precedes to say something to the group around him...and soon they look at me as well. I carefully make my way down the metal staircase. Once I move off the last step, the man with the lab coat approaches me as the group around him begins to go their separate ways. His dark eyes meet my own as I step closer to him.
"I assume you are Dr. Zola," I say with a nervous smile.
   "Yes, but not the Dr. Zola," he says with a slight frown. He then places his hand on his chest and with a smug smile he says "I'm merely his grandson."
   I stick out my hand and say "I'm Alexia Danel."
He shakes my hand with a smug smile on his face "ah, you must be the new assistant to one of my chief scientists."
"Yes," I reply as we release our hands.
"We will have your office set up at the next base," he says while a man pushes a long container off in the distance, coming towards us, "and you will get more information on your purpose here once you get settled in. We have to keep the information on this next project sealed tight...the project that you will be working closely on I presume."
"Yes, I was informed that this would be a high level clearance project," I say as my eyes follow the long container as it is pushed towards us. The container passes by slowly, with a blue glow emitting from the see through glass...and I spot a dark shadow lying down in it. A shadow of a body. I have to keep my eyes from widening in shock as the container carrying a sleeping body passes by us.
   "Well, once we move to the next base you will begin your work," Dr. Zola says as his eyes follow the container as well. "I must go check on a few things. So for now, you have the whole day to get adjusted to how we run things here." He sticks his hand out once more and says "welcome to Hydra."
   I shake his hand with a proud smile and then he's gone, following the container with the person inside that passed by earlier.

   What exactly did I sign up for?

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Hey everyone, I'm back! I apologize for the constant slow updates and what not. I'm having to deal with the sudden overflow of homework😭 #thestruggleisreal
I'm so glad that I finally finished this chapter (you guys probably are too😂)! Not sure when I will be able to upload the chapter after this, but hopefully it will be soon.

Thank you all for being patient and sticking with this story❤️ It means a lot!

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Yours truly,
American_Sk8ter