SOLDIER ─ marvel

XXI. Piecing It Together

Two days later...

Chapter Twenty-One
Soroya

Zemo wasn't in Stuttgart. He wasn't in Berlin or Düsseldorf either, the other two places his plane was tracked to. I tried tracking his scent from all of the airports, but with these cities being so populated, I kept losing his scent. We paid off the man who owns the private airport in Stuttgart to keep him from letting Zemo take off again, and to alert us if he shows up again. But as was the case with the private airport in Utica, this airport is very sketchy and low grade. I doubt we can rely on catching Zemo this way.

We can't rely on tracking him either, or at least not entirely. Theoretically I could try to track him all around Germany, but we don't have time, and neither does Bucky.

Everett is contacting the Berlin and Stuttgart black sights for the CIA right now to see if they can find any camera footage of him, or anything that can help us. While we wait, Alex, Walker, and i are taking a break and getting some lunch. We've all barely eaten in days, and if we're going to catch Zemo, we'll need our strength.

Ever since our conversation on the plane, Walker and I have gotten along much better. I wouldn't call us friends, but we have had an argument since the forest outside Utica, so I call that progress.

"So you can hear and smell everyone all the time? Doesn't that give you a headache?" Walker asks, stuffing a couple McDonald's fries in his mouth.

Alex is currently stuffing his face with a Big Mac, so I answer this question. "We can hear and smell everything in a couple mile radius, but we tune a lot of it out. If we let all that input in at once, we would never be able to think straight."

Walker seems genuinely interested in this topic, so he continues on. "When we first met, you mentioned you can smell my cologne. What other things can you sense about me with your powers."

I take a bite of my chicken sandwich before answering his question, thankful that fast food has taken over other countries and not just America. "I can hear your heart beat and your breathing, I can smell when adrenaline and other chemicals go through your veins, I can sense your movements, amongst other little things. Again, I tune a lot of that out, so I only sense those things if I focus on you specifically."

Walker takes a sip of Coke, shaking his head. "No wonder you were such a good assassin, you can sense everything about your opponents."

"It certainly is helpful. But having these powers isn't all glamorous. Being a shapeshifter means having a mental fight between you and your powers. The animal always wants to take over and control you. I have trained for a long time to keep the animal at bay, but in the beginning, when I first got my powers, I really was a savage."

Walker knits his eyebrows together, pointing to me with his Coke in his hand. "You speak about your powers like they're a living thing."

I nod, taking another bite of my sandwich. "A part of my serum is gamma radiation, the same substance used to create the Hulk. Bruce Banner has to fight between himself and the Hulk, we have to fight between ourselves and the animal."

"Must be hard."

"Not at much as it used to be. Some things make it harder, like eating meat, smelling blood, being in a fight."

"You are eating that sandwich a little weird," Walker observes, eating another fry. "What about sex? I would think that would drive your powers crazy."

Of course now is the moment Alex chooses to chime into the conversation. "Not always. Depends on how rough things get."

I feel myself cringe, glaring at my brother. "Alex, please stop talking."