A Bolt from the Blue

Chapter 21

Natasha and Steve soon arrived at the abandoned training camp. Steve looked at the place, at every corner, and realized how it had become just a shell, void of all content. And yet he remembered all those mornings feeling every muscle in his body burn in agony, his arms screaming in silence as he was clutching his rifle and the rest of the equipment tight against his thin chest, but still running far behind his fellow comrades.

They walked inside exploring the empty premises whose faded grey on the walls was the last remaining evidence that they used to be occupied.

Some frames hanging to the wall immediately caught his attention and he stepped closer gazing at the photographs of Peggy and Howard, an old friend he had been missing he realized and Peggy who looked as young, strong and beautiful as he remembered she was not so long ago from his time perspective.

"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked, breaking the silence.

He chose to leave it unanswered and walked away, physically trying to move on from that overwhelming waft from the past that was trying to cling to him.

They found a hidden elevator that took them all the way down to a backdated intel room. Somehow there was a modern flash drive device left on the main desk. Natasha plugged Fury's flash drive in, starting the whole system. A familiar voice started to speak in the largest computer screen standing in front of them.

It turned out to be Zola, an old foe, HYDRA's scientist and the man who had experimented on Bucky in a way that he had survived over 70 years in the ice along with him. His mind had somehow been transferred into this machine.

"For nearly 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed," Zola boasted.

"With the Reidlos," Steve eventually said after Zola finished to explain how HYDRA had been surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. all along. "Your soldier spelled backwards."

"He's been given this name specifically because he isn't one. He is an anti-soldier, a ruthless killer with no morals and no military conditioning. One of your missions back in 1942 counteracted my initial plans. So I had to find a new specimen for my experiments and we got our hands on a criminal. He first lacked the discipline but his total absence of moral sense and his inner brutality made it easier to have him rally behind our cause."

Natasha and Steve glanced at each other; it explained quite a few things, including how she had gotten out alive from his ambush.

"Speaking of, where is Sergeant Barnes?" Zola continued. Steve's posture changed and his hand squeezed into a fist as he heard his friend's name. "Seeing you here Captain has made a little nostalgic. The scientist in me would like to take a look at what could have been my most beautiful creation."

He furrowed his brows, not quite understanding what Arnim Zola meant with 'his most beautiful creation'. What kind of creation was Bucky meant to become?

"Steve, we got a bogey," Natasha said before he could ask anything. "Short-range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"Who fired it?" he asked although he already suspected what the answer would be.

Natasha took her eyes off her phone and looked slightly shocked. "S.H.I.E.L.D.," she said numbly, confirming Zola's words had been true.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Arnim's robotic voice spoke. "It's better this way. We are, both of us, out of time."

Rage took the best of him and he punched the screen hard, leaving a big mark of the impact right where the image of Zola's face was just a second before.