𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 || 𝘕𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘯

SLEEP DIDN'T COME AS EASY AS NOVA HAD WISHED. Natasha had passed out around 3 hours into the drive with Nova and Steve sitting in comfortable silence. Nova's fingers had tirelessly fiddled with the metal band around her wrist. The tips of her nails glided across the smooth surface and gently caught the seam between the metal and plastic inside. Ever so often clenching her jaw with the faint sting of the hundred needles piercing her skin. A constant reminder that her life was on a very real time limit. And it could stop if the circumstances stacked against her. Not that she would've regretted ever deciding to have calibrated and made the way it'd been.

"You've been staring at that thing for hours." Steve's statement made the girl lift her gaze. Meeting his in the rearview mirror. "That bracelet. Does it have any importance?"

Nova nearly laughed at the irony of the question. Of course, it held importance but unveiling the truths of it only made the importance of it sound fruitless and almost idiotic.

"Uh, yea'. I guess you could say that," she snickered, lifting her wrist and scanning the device closely.

"Mind me asking what that is?" Steve prodded further.

"Tony and Martin managed to make it suppress my powers. Almost suffocating the power in my veins and applying power to the bracelet," Nova explained. "Pretty nifty if you think about it."

"Applying power to what exactly?"

"A miniature tomahawk warhead. A self-destruct system is built into the device if it is forcefully removed. The needles in my wrist not only absorb my powers but monitor my heartbeat. If they are pulled from my wrist, the thing goes boom." The pure look of horror on the supersoldier's expression made Nova laugh softly. "Don't worry. Tony and Martin were heavily against it. I was the one to decide on the self-destruct system."

Still, he wore a clueless and incredulous look on his face. "But w-why?"

Nova didn't expect Steve to know or anyone for that fact. There were multiple reasons for the understandably outlandish and stupid decision. But she believed the decision was one of the only ones plausible if she became POW. Or if anyone tried to use her against her country and friends. At least then she was less of a risk and took a few fuckers with her to the grave.

She sighed, propping her head on her hand and said, "Because I don't know what I am capable of and I won't be tested on like a lab rat."

It's a simple explanation but Steve didn't buy it one bit. Sure, it may be one of the few core reasons and he wouldn't discredit them. Except, he'd like to think he got to know Nova well enough from their countless missions and could say there was more beneath the surface level of the explanation.

From the minute Steve met her, he knew she had depth. Apart from their initial interactions, she showed there was an intricate mind within that thick skull of hers. Exposing the warhead blueprints to Tony and Bruce, sending Cooper to guide him to the storage. There was a method to her chaos that all came with good intentions. He knew she'd do anything to take out the bad guys and set things right. Fate had been in her hands at almost every turn and it seemed it continued with that bracelet.

He just couldn't understand why going to such an extreme.

"Are you going to tell Natasha about it?" Steve asked softly, finally looking over his shoulder. Finding her already slightly tensed at the prospect.

"I can't. Not when there is so little I know about her," she explained shortly. "If she won't tell me her secrets. I won't tell her mine, and I trust you enough to do the same."

Steve sighed. "Nova-"

"Steve, I am going against everything I've ever known for you. I have to fight my best friend for you," she said. "I, at least, deserve your word that you won't tell her." Nova pauses, measuring her words with a sniffle and gaze flickering out the window. "She'll do everything to stop it. Even if that means holding Tony and Martin at gunpoint and strapped to a chair."

Although he didn't disagree, Steve felt a sense of guilt permeates in his chest. Unable to refrain from glancing at Natasha's sleeping features. Exhaling heavily and averting his gaze forward with a faint whisper falling from his lips, "Alright, I'll keep it a secret."

Then silence took its place once more. A time that Nova preferred it over the ever-so-evident guilt that bubbled in the pit of her stomach. She took precious energy to suppress it long enough for her till she fell numb to it. Enough so that her mind slowly drifted to aimless and meaningless thoughts. Eyes boring into the darkness beyond the edge of the dirt road.

She was only freed when a hand gently nudged her shoulder–alerting her of their arrival at the location they'd been tracking since they left the mall. Hopping out, Nova's face slightly scrunched up in disdain.

"Is this it?" Nova asked, inspecting the gate with a sniffle. Her face told the pair enough that she was already pretty doubtful of where they were led.

Natasha pocketed her phone, shrugging. "The file came from these coordinates."

"So did I." The pair followed Steve's gaze to find a sign with large white lettering 'Camp Lehigh.'

They broke the lock keeping them out and pushed open the gate. Making their way up the long road, they eventually made it to the central hub of the location. It was an old military camp. Old brick buildings that looked like they could've been housing troops or supply depots for equipment or vehicles. Now left to endure the warmth of roots to stretch across the land and claim ownership of the structures.

Somehow, it felt cathartic walking amongst these ruins.

"This camp was where I was trained," Steve stated, taking in the vaguely familiar sights of his past.

"Change much?" Natasha asked.

"A little." Steve stopped, staring up at an old flag post. It no longer flew the country's colours. Everything around them resembled a capsule of time that had been forgotten. Left untouched with only Mother Nature's natural growth to overtake it.

Walking a few more feet with her phone in the air, Natasha huffed in slight annoyance. "This is a dead-end," Natasha sighed. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."

But Steve turned towards a structure past Natasha. Eyebrows knitted together as Nova walked up beside him. Trying to follow his confused gaze with squinted eyes. "Spot something?"

"Yeah, you could say that." The Super-soldier began walking towards the said structure. Natasha and Nova kept in tow with him as they approached what appeared a bunker of sorts. Its concrete structure sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the very old amongst them. If anything, it looked the least affected by the decades that have passed.

"Arm regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks," Steve explained, looking at the pair. "This building is in the wrong place."

Steve broke the lock using his shield, and Nova opened the steel door. The metallic squeal filled the night air with the darkness of a staircase greeting them beyond. Natasha made quick to turn on the flashlight from her phone, pointing it downward. Leading the way 2 steps ahead of the other two. At first glance, in the darkness, Nova could pick apart the few desks and chairs in the moonlight from the door. Perhaps an office for higher-ranking officials to conduct business going on elsewhere?

But her speculations were answered when Natasha flipped a switch. All the lights within the large room turned on and revealed the space. The room was much larger than Nova could've expected and filled with more desks and chairs than he could have imagined. Each in singular rows facing the stairway with old documents scattered across the floor surrounding them. Perhaps they had to up and leave quickly or were meant to evacuate for something.

"This is S.H.I.E.L.D." Natasha nodded, gesturing to the large insignia on the wall far away.

Nova brushed her fingers over a desk. Pinching her fingers together and watching dust particles fall from the pads. "Dad never told me about this place. He used to rave on and on about these secret basses when Booker and I were just rookies," she stated. "Hard to believe he would keep this one hidden considering it's tied to Mr. Captain Underpants."

"I thought I told you to stop calling me that?" Nova smirked at the older man, tapping his nose with the tip of her finger.

He huffed, scanning his surroundings. "Maybe this is where they started," he guessed. "So far back that the file on this place was lost. Or maybe Fury never knew it existed to tell you about it."

They continued through the facility until they reached a back room. Upon stepping inside, they were welcomed by shelves and cubbies where people would likely house their belongings or files. Cobwebs hung to the edge of surfaces with shattered glass on the floor around a desk in front of them.

Natasha hummed, nodding to a row of pictures of three individuals. "And there's Stark's father."

"Howard," Steve replied, staring intently at the picture of the man with nicely styled hair and a mustache.

"Looks like a douche if you ask me- OW!" Nova rubbed her side, glaring at Natasha. Only earning a mischievous wink in response.

But the picture on the fire right wasn't smashed like the others. "Who's the girl?" Natasha asked, looking at Steve.

Steve stared at the picture a moment longer than usual before moving on. Leaving Nova to glance at it once more before following the pair.

Almost with superhuman senses, Steve noticed a faint draft between the crack of two shelves. He nodded to the pair and they both seemed to understand as they pulled his gun free from their pants and switched off the safety.

"If you're already working in a secret office..." Steve pushed the shelve to the side, frowning slightly at the sight of two silver sliding doors. "...why do you need to hide the elevator?"

Pulling out her phone, Natasha hovered a blue light over the keypad. It scanned the buttons and it revealed the code by the fingerprints left. 8539. She pressed the combination, and the elevator dinged, the doors opening with the light turning on.

"Am I the only one that feels like we're about to see a hidden nuke silo or something out of a spy movie?" Nova muttered, stepping inside with a deep frown.

"Those are movies, Nova," Natasha rumoured. "The worst thing we find is human testing of some sort of cyborgs or something like that."

"And they're meant to take over the U.S.? Oddly sounds like Terminator or something." The look Nova earned from Steve made her shrivel slightly, giving a sheepish smile. "I've been binging movies before missions. Sorry."

When the doors opened, the room waiting for them was pitch black. The whirling sound of machines working was faint but seemed more intense with an eerie atmosphere. As they stepped further out of the elevator, the doors shutting behind them, Nova could make out the glow of buttons on a desk ahead of them. Given only vague vision with the help of lights illuminating from between the floor grates they walked over.

But once they were a handful of feet from the landing the large control station sat on, automated lights turned on, revealing their surroundings. Old tech filled the room, likely never removed since they had been installed. It all was prehistoric tech, and Nova couldn't have been more glad to have grown in the generation she did.

"This can't be the data point," Natasha said. "This technology is ancient."

Stepping up to the desk, Nova scanned the board with a hum, lips pursing in surprise. "I'm just gonna take that from you for a quick second." She snatched the drive from the redhead's fingers and scanned the SD input. "Out of everything here, this looks oddly present. Like it was made just for-" She plugged the drive in and looked around as all the machines around her whirled to life. "-this!" Nova clapped her hands, smiling.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Good job, tech wiz," she teased, earning a glare from her counterpart.

Their attention shifted to the central screen with an indistinct voice emitting from the computer. "Initiate System?" It read as Natasha let out a heavy sigh. "Y-E-S spells yes." She typed it out and pressed enter with the sound of the system beginning to power up to life.

A smirk tugged at her lips as she raised an eyebrow. "Shall we play a game?" She asked aloud before looking back at the two men. "It's from a movie that was really--"

"I know, I saw it."

The screen began to flicker with what seemed to be an image trying to fabricate. Jaxon couldn't make out much of what was beginning to appear, but he saw glasses and a nose.

"Rogers, Steven, born 1918," the computer said as the camera on the main monitor turned. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984."

Then it turned to Nova, who stared right back at it with a tilt of her head. "Usoro, Nova, born 1989."

Natasha stared at the screen, frowning. "It's some kind of recording."

"I'm not a recording, Fraulein," the computer replied. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am."

A picture on a smaller monitor showed a man that looked to be the man on the bigger screen. "Steve, you know this guy?" Nova inquired, looking at the supersoldier.

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull," Steve said as he rounded the computer. "He's been dead for years."

"First correction, I am Swiss," Zola announced. "Secondly, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Steve questioned.

"Invited," the scientist mocked.

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War 2," Natasha said aloud, looking at Nova. "S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value. Isn't Doctor Gene one of those few?"

"Yeah, but she has zero connection to anything HYDRA-related. She'd even been working closely with Dad on some project," Nova explained. "I've never met her."

"Ah, Gene." The man hummed. "A woman after my heart. I thought I could convert her before S.H.I.E.L.D. hired me. But she was always going on about helping the world as a whole," he explained. "So maybe out of respect for her, I helped with their cause. I also helped my own."

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve butted in sternly.

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

"Prove it."

"Accessing archive." A video feed on the far left began to play, gaining the trio's attention. The screens began to flicker with old films and files appearing on multiple monitors.

"HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom," Zola explained. "What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist."

More footage was shown of Steve battling HYDRA soldiers and other military troops fighting. "The war taught us much," Zola said. "Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly."

"After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited." A picture of the man appeared. "The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

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

"No, they wouldn't." Both Natasha and Steve turned to Nova who frowned to herself, placing a hand on her chest. Unable to shake the tightening within. "You just need the perfect mask to be placed on the perfect person for it to work. Someone with power. Someone like Alexander Pierce."

"But why?" Natasha questioned. "Fury and Pierce have been close forever-"

"That doesn't mean it's impossible HYDRA got to him and convinced him." Nova laughed in almost disbelief at the revelation. "Shake hands and rub shoulders with the right people, you can possibly be exonerated from any type of accusations or assumptions."

"HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security," Zola said. "Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world will arise. We won, Captain," he told the Super-soldier. "Your death amounts to the same as your life. A zero-sum."

Steve suddenly punched the monitor as it slowly powered down. Only to have one of the other monitors boot on. "As I was saying..."

"What's on this drive?" Steve exclaimed, moving to the next screen that Zola's face stayed on.

"Project insight requires insight," Zola replied. "So, I wrote an algorithm."

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

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

A set of blast doors to their elevator suddenly began to close. Steve spun around and threw his shield to try and hold them open. But they shut before he could do so, his shield ricocheting off the wall to which he caught it with ease.

Natasha stared at her phone with her face dropping. "Steve, we've got a bogey," she announced. "Short-range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"Where's Leila when I need her?" Nova muttered, looking around for some sort of exit.

"Who fired it?" Steve questioned.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," She replied.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Zola cut in. "Admit it. It's better this way. We are, both of us-" Steve quickly ripped up the floor grate and gently grabbed Natasha and pulled her inside. "-out of time."

By the time Nova made it inside, the missile had hit and sent a ball of flame directly toward the girl. And she barely had time to react with scalding heat sent across her back, eliciting a scream from her lips. "Nova!" Natasha cried out, attempting to reach.

Steve tried to position himself over Nova to protect her from the falling rubble, but his attempts were futile. He was forced to watch the woman weakly cover her head with chunks of concrete falling down and hitting her limbs, knocking her to the ground.

Nova shivered, unkempt sobs and screams falling from her trembling lips. The combination of pain and numbness becomes synchronized to a stillness of her senses. Her eyes lulled until a sharp pain spliced across the back of her head, knocking her out.