Winter's End [winter soldier//Bucky Barnes AU]

Chapter Fourteen

*Third person POV*

Loki peered curiously through the trees, watching as the Avengers got onto the helicopter. Once it took off, Loki followed it, determined to figure out where they were going and why.

He was further perplexed when they landed in farm land.

What were they doing here?

He continued to follow them until they went into an old barn, and even then, he sat and waited for an hour to see what they were doing. But after an hour, none of them had even come out.

Strangely enough, he found himself wishing Crossbones were still alive. At least he had given Loki access to Hydra weapons and Hydra armies. Loki knew he could probably form an alliance with Hydra, but they were a large and powerful organization; which meant that anything he would want to do would probably take forever because it would have to be authorized by hundreds of people. And god knows Loki isn't patient.

So instead, he sat and felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. Uncertainty.

He had no idea what his next move would be. All he knew was that he had one up on the group, with his favor that Sarah owed him.

And he could do a lot with that one favor.

--

*Steve's POV*

"So far, all the allies against Hydra have brought down a combined nine bases. All nine bases were big, essential parts of Hydra, so hopefully it crippled them for a while. The last big base was brought down two days ago by a few loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and of course you guys brought down the biggest two." Fury explained, glancing around at us. We all sat in a circle in the loft of the barn.

We were sharing all info we had on Hydra, because we were running out of time to bring the whole organization down. We needed to strike soon.

"As for the known leaders, we have very little information to go off of. We know that it used to be Crossbones, but since we defeated him, no new leaders have really shown up. We do know that Garrett was next in line, but he has been MIA for a long time now. So either he's dead, injured, hiding or missing." Hill said, looking uneasy at the thought of him being gone for so long.

"The only other possible leader that we know of is Reyna, a thirty two year old scientist who's been working for Hydra for many, many years. She was able to recreate the same serum used to bring Coulson back to life in just days. Very smart, very manipulative, and good friends with people in high places."

I nodded as I processed all of this. Hydra was a very complex organization, that had trillions of secrets. If we were to defeat them, we needed to know where and when to strike, and have an intricate plan that ensured success and had an extraction.

If we didn't, not only would we fail, but we would probably be captured or killed.

"Yeah, and Loki is still missing as well." Bucky suddenly chimed in.

"Yeah where the hell has he been? Loki is hardly ever quiet. He's a drama queen, that has to do everything in the spotlight. The fact that he has been MIA, when he's usually in the middle of everything, worries me a lot more than Garrett's disappearance." Tony interrupted, stemming from what Bucky said. We all nodded in agreement.

The situation with Loki was very strange at the moment.

Fury cleared his throat in the ensuing silence, and opened his mouth to speak.

"Unfortunately, we have no way to track him, and we have no way to track Garrett or Reyna. We are pretty much in the dark right now. I have agents on the ground that are searching for patterns, information, more allies, more weapons..pretty much anything we may need to defeat them. Coulson has a really good team researching Project DEATHLOK right now."

I frowned at his mention of DEATHLOK and was going to say something, but Sarah beat me to it.

"DEATHLOK?"

Fury looked at her and nodded, as all of our frowns deepened.

"Project DEATHLOK is one of the experiments Hydra is testing on humans right now. That base y'all blew up, a couple months ago, was filled with test subjects from that experiment. It's basically a super serum created by Reyna, in an attempt to replicate the serum used on Steve. Needless to say, it only worked on a few people. But those people are a force to be reckoned with."

Silence fell once again, as we all tried to absorb what we just heard. So Hydra had a few unstable super soldiers.

JUST what we needed, he said sarcastically.

"Hopefully our allies will get us a lead or two. Until then, we are going to stay here to rest, heal and train. We are going up against a tough force, and we need EVERY ounce of strength and smarts we have to defeat them." Hill added, sighing and looking at the table. Her eyes unfocused as she said one more thing.

"Just know that there's a chance this is a battle we can't win."

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