Drowning - Pietro Maximoff

Chapter Three

Three Years Later

Echo's POV

Horror overcame me as three bombs came between Winter and I, the fear showing in both of our eyes as they went off. I felt the searing heat on my body as I ran for cover and shot down three men on my way behind a car. My breaths were coming in short gasps, Winter and I have never been separated during a mission before. We were partners and did everything together, whether we were in the field or in Siberia at the compound. We created names for ourselves together, whether he had one before I came around or not.

I couldn't hear anything, the explosion blocking nearly all of my senses but I continued on with the mission regardless. Hydra had drilled into our minds that the mission comes before the man, no matter who it was. I continued through the warehouse and burst into the main room shooting down every man in there except one. The target.

I cornered him into a closed-off corner and he whimpered when I pressed the gun to his head, "Please," he said, "I'll give you whatever you want."

I chuckled dryly beneath my muzzle and pulled the trigger. I wanted Mama, I wanted to be free of my handlers, but neither of those things were ever going to happen. Blood and brains splattered everywhere, but I didn't care, my mind was on one thing and one thing only; Winter.

I took a few hours to get back to Siberia by plane and as soon as I had arrived I was forced into a debriefing room, every question I asked about Winter was ignored. I sat impatiently in one of the chairs with a gun and my muzzle placed on the table. "Starling," a man said, speaking in German instead of Russian and entering the room with a smirk, a monocle resting over one of his eyes, "I've heard so much about you and I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I found out that you were merely a teenager, a child."

"Where is my partner?" I asked him flatly, plainly not interested in what he was talking about. Winter is the most important thing to me, I need to know if he's okay and where he was.

"Straight to business then," he said slightly disappointed, "Your partner was killed in the explosion at the warehouse."

I stared at him blankly as my stomach dropped and my heart broke. The one person who has been with me since I came to this hellhole is dead. The pain was the first thing that I noticed and then the emptiness that followed after it. The man kept talking and I only got a few things out of what he was saying, his name was Strucker and I've been assigned under him in Sokovia, another cold climate. I just nodded at him repeatedly but I understood none of what he was saying. I couldn't feel anything, it was like I was having an out of body experience, one I wished was just a dream. The one person who's cared for me in seven years was dead and I couldn't do anything to save him. I watched as he died and I didn't even know it, not until it was already too late.

"Starling," Strucker said, pulling me from emptiness inside of me, "we leave in ten minutes, grab whatever you need and meet me at the exit."

"Yes sir," I responded roughly and simply followed him out of the room, and to the exit, I had nothing here of importance anymore. He led me to a jet and sat with me.

"You have quite the file here, Echo," he said, pronouncing my legal name differently, "Very intelligent, engineer, scientist, pilot, hacker, expert marksman, you've mastered nearly every weapon there is, you know more than thirty languages, and you're an acrobat." He chuckled like he was impressed, "You know quite a lot for a seventeen-year-old girl," he stated.

"Sir, what is to be expected of me when we arrive in Sokovia?" I asked, wanting to change the subject, focus on anything that wouldn't remind me of Winter.