Always Okay ─ n. romanoff ✓

nine

Again, I'm sorry about all of the verbatim script in this chapter. We should be returning to The Eternal Struggles of Sasha Romanoff™ soon.

***

"THIS can't be the data point." Natasha smirked. "This technology is ancient."

Sasha was surrounded by rows and rows of computers that were older than she was. To her, this whole room was one big fossil. She spun around slowly, stopping when her eyes caught on a USB port that looked to be from this century.

"That isn't." She pointed to the port. Natasha walked over and plugged the drive in. Instinctively, Sasha winced, expecting it to trigger some sort of explosion. When all that happened was the computer turning on and saying "Initiate system?" in an automated voice, she didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

"Y-E-S, spells yes," Nat said as she typed the letters into the computer. Sasha found her way over to Natasha, who looked at Sasha with a smile and murmured, "Shall we play a game?" For Steve's benefit, she added, "It's from a movie that..."

"Yeah, I know," Steve cut her off. They all went quiet when the screen of the computer flickered to life.

"Rogers, Steven," it said in a heavily accented voice. "Born nineteen-eighteen. Romanova, Natalia Alianovna. Born nineteen-eighty-four. Avilova, Anya. Born two-thousand."

"Call me Anya one more time and I disable you." Sasha stepped forward and flicked the computer screen. There were a lot of parts of her life she never wanted to go back to. The part where she was Anya Avilova was one of them. That name had no sentimental value to her. Her parents were dead long before her memory began, and all she thought of when she heard that name was the Red Room. It was the last label she wanted to be carrying around.

"Sasha, it's a recording," Natasha said. "It isn't going to listen to you."

"I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." A photo of a man Sasha recognized but couldn't identify flashed onto the screen.

"Yeah, that clears it up. Who are you?" Sasha asked.

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." Steve furrowed his brows. "He's been dead for years."

"I hate to burst your bubble, but... I don't think he's dead." Sasha circled around the control center. "If your buddy was one of Hydra's minions, why the fuck is he in the basement of a S.H.I.E.L.D. base?" She began inspecting all of the wires coming out of the computer.

"Minion is not the word I'd use, Miss Rushman," the computer responded. "And I was invited here."

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II." Natasha glanced at Steve. "S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"Already this sounds like a fantastic idea!" Sasha exclaimed from behind the computers.

"They thought I could help their cause," Zola said, ignoring Sasha, who walked back over to Natasha. "I also helped my own."

"And who could possibly have predicted that?" Sasha asked with an eye roll, just as Steve responded, "Hydra died with the Red Skull."

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."

"Prove it." Steve's jaw locked in place. Sasha didn't like where this was going, but something told her it was too late to make a run for it. She considered trying to override whatever this was, but she'd never had to override a human consciousness before. It seemed better to just sit there silently.

"Accessing archive." An image of the Red Skull appeared on the screen, followed by the S.H.I.E.L.D. founders. "Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited. The new Hydra grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible," Natasha whispered. "S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you."

"Accidents happen." A newspaper about Alexandra Carter's disappearance flashed on the screen, followed by the faces of Maria and Howard Stark, and the information about Fury's death. "Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, Hydra's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life; a zero sum."

Suddenly, Steve's fist was flying at the screen, shattering it into pieces. The screen of the computer beside it flickered to life.

"As I was saying..."

"What's Hydra going to do with whatever's on the drive?" Sasha asked. "How many people are going to die?"

"Project Insight requires insight," Zola said as though they were stupid for not saying it themselves. "So I wrote an algorithm."

"What kind of algorithm?" Natasha pressed. "What does it do?"

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

Sasha turned around to see the elevator doors closing. She dove towards them, Steve's shield grazing her side as it whizzed past her. She landed on her stomach several feet in front of the elevator, the doors of which were locked to keep them in.

"Steve, we got a bogey," Nat said. "Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"Who fired it?" Steve asked. Sasha hopped onto her feet.

"Who the fuck do you think?" she yelled. "Hydra!"

Natasha shrugged. "S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Same goddamn thing." Sasha kicked at an uneven metal panel in the floor. She looked back at the computers, where the screen was still flickering green.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're...both of us...out of time."

In a panic, Sasha kicked the edge of the grate harder, sending it skidding to the side.

"Down here!" she called, diving in the second the place exploded. She landed somewhere in a pile of dirt, shredded pieces of metal pelting her like rain. Steve's muscular body brushed against her, his shield held high above his head. Solid rock was down-pouring now, slamming into Sasha's back.

"Where's Natasha?" she screamed, desperately trying to make sure Steve heard her over the noise. She coughed violently. Steve lifted up Nat's unconscious body, and without thinking, Sasha gasped. It wasn't the first time she'd seen Natasha knocked out during a mission or a fight, and she was sure it wouldn't be the last, but every time it happened, a gut-wrenching pain twisted Sasha's inside. Their relationship was, in Sasha's words, "beyond fucked up," but she would still jump off a cliff to save Nat if it came down to that. Sasha didn't think her own life was worth very much, anyway.

"Stay quiet," Sasha said finally. "They'll be looking for us."