CONTROL.
008. | ❛ you're home . ❜

"It was him. He looked right at me and he didn't even know me."

"Us." Caroline corrected him still hurt from the bullet and keeping an eye of Kiara, who was still unconscious.

"How's that even possible? It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola," Steve replied,"Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on 'em. Whatever he did, it helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him."

"None of that's your fault, Steve." Caroline said weakly. Steve could see that Caroline was losing the pigment of her skin. And it was difficult for her to stay awake.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky." But Steve quickly added something, "And now I have you." Caroline, let out a grunt of agony as she could feel the bullet go deeper into her shoulder. Kiara's body was now leaning on Caroline's, specifically the bullet wound.

"Who is she?" Sam gestured to Kiara.

"She's my sister," Caroline said. "She must've been experimented on or transformed into something to still be alive."

"Shouldn't she be like your friend out there?" Sam continued to dig himself a hole.

"I guess. But she was protecting me. Not just today but for a while, she's been checking up on me, watching me, guarding over me to see if I was okay. That just proves that she's not one of them and also proves that Bucky can't be one as well." Caroline looked to Steve who squeezed her hand. She whimpered as he did so feeling more of the bullet carving through her shoulder.

Sam notices Caroline is bleeding from her shoulder and looks at the guards,"We need to get a doctor here. We don't pull it out she's gonna bleed out here in the truck."

Suddenly one of the guards pulls out an electric rod and neutralizes the other guard and knocks him out, the guard is revealed to be Maria Hill as she takes off her helmet.

"That thing was squeezing my brain."

Sam looks at her in confusion,"Who's this guy?"

When the van stopped, Maria took the opportunity to drill a hole through the van using a device SHIELD invented and the four of them crawled through.

__________________

"GSW. She's lost at least a pint." Maria called out down the dark hallway as someone they didn't recognize came towards them.

"Maybe two." Sam yelled as Caroline leaned on Natasha and Steve's side.

"Let me take her!"

"I'm fine. Just take care of my sister." Caroline called out as she was being split 5 different ways by the doctors. It wasn't until Caroline shed her fangs that they backed off and started focusing more attention to her sister's injuries.

"She'll want to see him first." Hill takes them to Fury who's alive and lying in bed, all of them look at him in shock.

"About damn time."

As Caroline's wound is being treated, they all begin to wonder how is it that Fury's alive. The doctor pulled the bullet out of her shoulder as she grunted in pain. She looked down at the wound as it started to heal slowly. The doctors handed her a blood bag since her skin wasn't exactly back to normal.

"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache." Fury listed off tiredly.

"Don't forget your collapsed lung." The doctor said while giving Caroline another blood bag

"Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good." Fury said rolling his eyes

"They cut you open, your heart stopped." Natasha pointed out, who stared at Fury with no emotion on her face.

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it." Fury replied

"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve asked.

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful." Maria responded

"Can't kill you if you're already dead. Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust." Fury said which kind of pained Caroline a bit. Steve placed a kiss on her forehead as she smiled weakly at him. But Steve could tell that Fury's words affected her.

_______________

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said, peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility," Fury said, disgusted throwing the old photograph of him and Pierce in the table in front of him,"See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

"We have to stop the launch." Caroline said who was now full recovered from her bullet shot wound, with Steve by her side.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." Fury opens a case containing three chips.

"What's that?"

"Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized." Maria explained to them as she showed an active diagram on a laptop. 

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own." Fury added on, and gesturing to the new blades in the case

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die." Maria stated

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get pass them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left..."

"We're not salvaging anything. We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

Fury came to his defense,"SHIELD had nothing to do with it."

"You gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you've said so yourself. HYDRA was right under your nose and nobody noticed."

Fury was growing annoyed now, "Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed."

"And how many paid the price before you did?" Steve shot back which caused Caroline to grab his hand, calming him at he sweet touch of her hand.

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes."

"Even if you have, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too? SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes."

"He's right." Maria silently agrees with a regretful look on her face

Fury looks at Natasha then at Sam and finally at Caroline.

"Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower." Sam said

Fury sighed, "Well... Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain" Steve felt everyone's eyes on him while Caroline looked up at him with a smile. He looked around at the faces around him, he knew that they trusted him to call the shots.

[•]

Caroline followed the doctor's to the room where they were attending Kiara and to Caroline's knowledge she was now awake. She tried to imagine the many different scenarios that their encounter would go, ranging from disastrous to welcoming. She was still certain that no matter what Caroline would be the understanding sibling she always was even if Kiara was one of them.

Kiara was putting a shirt on, but the extensive scars that earned from all over her body was clear that it was acquired from years of life.

"Ouch, now I know that I've caused that small one on your arm because I bit you." Caroline awkwardly said as her sister turned around and was met with some tears forming in her eyes.

"The one where I wouldn't stop crying until you offered me a lollipop so I wouldn't tell Mom." Kiara smiled looking down at her hands, not wanting to look up at her sister's eyes. The ones that told her she was home, because Kiara didn't want to go home after what she's become. She didn't deserve it.

"We don't have to talk about it. I'm not going to force you because I know it's hard. Trust me, I've been there with Steve after I had to explain to him what I've become. Who I've become."

"An immortal being that sucks blood." Kiara pointed out already researching and knowing of Caroline's transformation.

Caroline let out a little laugh, "Yes, exactly. But I know how hard it is, I just wanted you to know that I'm here. You've been watching, protecting, guarding me all this time and you've never came home. Instead you distanced yourself to protect me."

"It didn't really help, you occasionally run towards danger." Kiara joked again seeing it as the only way she could talk. "I couldn't come home to you. I didn't deserve to after what I've been, who've I become. Just like you've killed, I've killed as well probably more than you have. I became Hydra's puppet for the longest time, they captured me after becoming a informant back in 43. The letter left to you from me was a fake, I never wanted to leave home or you. But they make you believe anything.
I turned into a monster just like Bucky, I gained the name of Casualty. Numerous amounts of killings gets you a name like that, horrifying as it is. But my mind couldn't take it anymore, that photo of us was what brought me back. A reoccurring dream that I always had was of you, that you were my angel. It reminded me of what I wanted, who I wanted to get back to. Ever since you became an associate to Tony Stark, I could see that you were in good hands. Then the Avengers came around, Steve came out from the ice, and I knew that I didn't need to protect you. So I loomed in the shadows until I followed you to Washington and seeing that the Winter Soldier was back, I had to protect you from him. If he was as dangerous as I was, he could've killed you. I spent six years in the darkness and I looked into the eyes of the devil and I gave him my soul. That's who I am."

"You're not a killer anymore. You've showed me by looking over me this whole time." Caroline got closer to Kiara who only moved away.

"You can harness that light that's still inside of you, but I'm not that person and I never will be. Because of the woman that I was, the girl that I was, was gone."

"I'm not going to pretend that I've been through anything that you have. But one thing that I've learned in the past year is that these things... they don't break us. They make us who we are."

"I'm not a hero, I'm the furthest  thing from it." Kiara kept revisiting  the topic that she was gone. "What I am is irredeemable."

Caroline extended her hand to cup Kiara's cheek which was notably teared up from their interact, "If you are so irredeemable, then why did an angel lead you home?"

Kiara launched forward to hug her sister in a tight embrace that not even the holy gods could break apart. "You're home."

[•]

Steve thought about Bucky and needed to go outside. Finding the elevator, he took it to the top floor that led to the outdoor bridge that overlooked the dam.

As Steve stood out on the bridge, the memories that he shared with Bucky ran through his mind.

I'm with you till the end of the line, pal

"He's going to be there, you know," Caroline's voice snapped him back to the present.

"I know," Steve replied.

"Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop." Sam added on.

Steve was quiet for a few seconds knowing that Sam was just trying to help,"I don't know if I could do that."

"Well, he might not give you a choice. He doesn't know you. Us."

"He will. He's our friend, Caroline. He will. Gear up, it's time." Steve turns and starts to walk off before Caroline stops him

"You gonna wear that?"

"No. If you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform." Caroline instantly knew that he was referring to the one they saw in the museum. Steve Rogers - Captain America was gong to end this the same way it began.