FILE n°888 | SUBJECT RED
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the triskellion
SHIELD headquarters, washington, DC

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march 9th 2014

Steve Rogers was not having a great day, to put it mildly. Finding out that Nick Fury had once again lied to him just to get the super soldier to carry out his missions for him had put a slight damper on his mood. He didn't know what stung more, the fact that Fury couldn't bother letting him in on SHIELD business or the fact that Natasha had lied to his face. And then of course there was still the subject of the red headed girl he had seen on the ship last night. He had tried to bring it up to Natasha several times, but the woman had simply waved him off, assuring him that what he had seen was just one of the scared hostages making a run for it.

Still, Steve couldn't keep the girl's face out of his mind, her big round blue and green eyes had been intently fixed upon his own and looking into them had unlocked a memory buried deep inside his mind of someone he knew was dead. He had refused to dwell on that memory but he couldn't help but analyse her face for what felt like the millionth time since this morning. Her sharp angular cheekbones, the small birthmark on her neck shaped like a loopy heart, those deep set eyes and the particular colour of her blue one were all features that seemed so familiar to him.

Walking through the lobby of the SHIELD headquarters in Washington, Steve had his mind replaying the events of the previous night in his head. Even if that girl had been a scared hostage making a run for it, why was she dressed for a mission? Why did she have knives strapped to her leather suit and why was she wearing a dark mask that covered half of her face. Natasha's theory made no sense.

The elevator ride to Fury's office was over before he knew it and only a few seconds later, he was walking into the director of SHIELD's office. "You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?"

Nick Fury was sitting behind his desk, facing away from him, looking out of the glass windows covering his entire office that overlooked Washington DC and the White House.

"I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours."

Steve persisted. "Which you didn't feel obliged to share." He kept walking until he reached the director's desk, the man was still facing away from him.

"I'm not obliged to do anything." Fury said, bluntly.

"Those hostages could've died, Nick." The super soldier's voice held resent and anger towards the man wearing an eye patch in front of him.

Nick Fury finally turned around, looking at Steve directly. "I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen."

"Soldiers trust each other, that's what makes an army." The blue eyed man reminded the director of what he was taught when he was in the army. "Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns."

"Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye." The man stood up as he mentioned the story of how his patch came to cover his left eye. "Look, I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with." His tone changed. It was barely noticeable to anyone who didn't know the man, but it was softer somehow. "Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything."

"I can't lead a mission when the people I'm leading have missions of their own." It wasn't what Steve was saying that made him realise this, but he couldn't help but wonder if the man standing a few centimetres away from him would know anything about the girl on the boat. Nick Fury had to have been with SHIELD since he was at least thirty something. A suspicious looking teenager running around in a suit that seemed to be the exact replica of the one Natasha wore had to have been on his radar at some point. Not only that, but the fact that that girl knew of their mission made it ten times more suspicious.

"...Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all." The man's voice pulled him away from thoughts of the previous night.

"Except you." Steve finally understood where Fury was heading with this plan.

"You're wrong about me." Fury's tone held a pinch of malice. Like the man got pleasure out of making the way into his brain an unfinishable maze. "I do share. I'm nice like that." Even though his face was dead serious, the misplaced humor in this conversation had to have Steve biting his lip not to let a chuckle out.

Once both men were situated inside the elevator, Steve gave in to the question that had been eating him alive for the past couple of hours. "Last night, on the ship. Before I discovered Natasha gathering SHIELD intel, I saw something.."

Fury's eyebrows raised slightly, indicating his interest in what Steve was about to ask. "Go on."

"There was a girl, maybe about twelve or so, leaving the ship. She was dressed in a suit that looked like something Natasha would wear, with knives strapped to her sides and guns to her calves"

"Red hair?" Steve froze. Nick knew.

"Yeah, red hair." The super soldier couldn't keep surprise from seeping into his tone as he raised an eyebrow at this. When he looked at Fury, the man wore a tired façade, like he had been dreading for this subject to come up. "Why? Do you know her?"

The man sighed, and eventually spoke. "The girl you're talking about goes by the alias The Shadow Weaver. She's a high ranked HYDRA assassin, one of their favourite toys, amongst many others. She first landed on my radar five years ago or so. She had taken out two dozens of SHIELD agents so, of course, I had to get myself on the case."

A twelve year old HYDRA experiment that had killed a dozen SHIELD agents all on her own? His curiosity concerning the girl was definitely rising. "And what did you find out?" Steve questioned.

"Nothing much." The answer sounded rehearsed, but the super soldier let it slide. "Found out that she had higher training than any average HYDRA pawn, born in the early two thousands, most likely brainwashed. HYDRA is very discreet with how much information they let slip. This was mainly found through agents that have already encountered her, though not many have been left alive."

"That bad?" The child was only twelve years old. Then again, if she had landed on Fury's radar five years ago with already such a high kill count, she had probably been bred by HYDRA. No child would be randomly plucked off the street by HYDRA, no parent would let that happen.

"I have a team here that keeps tabs on her whereabouts whenever she lands on our radar. Most SHIELD agents know some type of information about the Shadow Weaver."

"Natasha doesn't." Steve recalled the confusion on Natasha's face when he had questioned her further about what he had seen.

"I have kept some things from Agent Romanoff over the years, and for good reasons." Fury smoothly answered his question, without telling him anything at the same time.

"Why would you keep a HYDRA case like that from Agent Romanoff when that is her area of expertise? Didn't she use to work closely with a program linked to HYDRA?" This whole affair made no sense to Steve.

"If I'm guessing correctly, I think you'll find out soon enough for yourself." The doors of the elevator slid open, and the both of them walked out.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield." The automated voice in the Smithsonian museum could be heard crackling through the speaker as a couple of people gathered around the glass case that showcased an old photo of Captain America's childhood best friend, James Buchanan Barnes, deceased in a train accident in 1944.

People surrounding the exhibit gawked at the old footage, fascinated by such a tragic period of history while among them, a tall man, his blond hair covered by a baseball cap, kept his eyes fixed on James Barnes' profile.

"Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country." The voice faded, the black and white old footage of 1940s Steve Rogers and James Barnes took to the screen. The two men were smiling widely, an odd sight for the context they were in, Captain America's childhood friend rolled his eyes at something his friend whispered, before both of them broke out into a fit of laughter.

Steve Rogers' gaze was low, his mouth slightly parted open as he took in the familiar features of his long lost friend. The morning blue eyes, that weren't reflected in colour thanks to the age of the footage, the sharp angular cheekbones and the small birthmark shaped like a loopy heart on his neck.

It's not possible. The rational part of his mind screamed at him. It was just his mind playing tricks on him. The birthmark the Shadow Weaver and Bucky shared were just a huge coincidence. Probably a trick of the moonlight played on him. After all, two out of three newborns have some sort of birthmark and it can happen that two people have matching birthmarks. Right?

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

HYDRA base
siberia, unknown

the same day

There was a new mission coming, Sashenka could feel it. She also could tell it wasn't going to be just any mission. The twelve year old had just gotten back from her last mission in the States a few hours ago, and she was currently sitting on the simple cot in the corner of her cell, waiting further instructions. For once, the headquarters were quiet, though you could cut the tension in there with a knife. Most HYDRA agents were currently back in Washington DC, to carry out a mission on a target. Her Papa had gone with them to ensure the target would be finished.

When she had returned from her recon mission, she had gotten a few moments with her Papa before he had to leave.

Sashenka's body was overworked, exhausted and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and give into sleep. After being checked over for any injuries, she had been sent to the weapons room, to remove her equipment and weapons before she would finally be allowed back into her cell by a guard standing outside the door of the room.

To be honest, the red head enjoyed being in the weapons room because it was the only place that guards weren't allowed to enter. It was a formal order given by Pierce, simply because he was afraid that anyone would try to steal weapons. So, only assets like Sashenka and her Papa were allowed in before and after missions. Guards were stationed in front the doors to the room.

Just as Sashenka was removing the knives and pistols from her suit, the metal door opened and in walked her Papa. She didn't bother turning around, after all, she didn't want to give their exchanges away to the camera that was plugged into the ceiling. Although the camera couldn't pick up sound, it could pick up movement, which was why Sashenka and her Papa made sure to face away from each other so no one could see their lips moving.

"Are you alright?" Her Papa asked, lowering his voice once his back was facing hers.

This was tradition, he always asked if she was alright before anything else.

"Yes." Sashenka answered, busying herself with the laces of her boots.

"The mission is Washington." He spoke, just as his daughter was about to ask where he was being sent to. "I have to kill SHIELD's director." He picked up a gun, checking for any leftovers before loading it with bullets.

"Nick Fury." Sashenka recalled the man's name.

"Familiar?" The Soldier wondered.

His daughter smirked, he couldn't see her face but had a feeling she was amused by his question. After all, one of the most prominent traits that he had watched develop in his daughter's personality was her dry sense of humor. Though, he could never tell where she got that from.

"He's heard of me." She supplied.

"You did kill half of his team." He couldn't help but chuckle at his twelve year old's choice of words. They didn't have much material to make jokes out of in a place like HYDRA, so they picked the most morbid and disturbing things that happened here to make each other laugh. It was dark and creepy, but it was their life.

"I like to think of it as a memorable introduction."

Once the humorous part of their exchange died down. The daughter wished her father good luck on his mission and he promised to come back alive. Just like they always did.

That exchange had happened a few hours ago. By now, Sashenka guessed that her father must have been done with his mission or at last, the target must be under control. What she didn't guess would happen, was that she would currently be hearing footsteps heading down the hallway to her cell. A few moments later, the steel door of her cell slid open and one of the few guards that had remained at the facility today walked in.

"Nastoyatel' khochet videt' tebya v svoyem kabinete, svin'ya." He announced like he was reading the sentence from a piece of paper dressed in spandex in public, in medieval times. The Superior wants to see you in his office, pig.

Sashenka knew she shouldn't laugh, but his tone and choice of words not going well together at all, almost caused the girl to burst in a fit of laughter. Despite that, she bit her lip and stood up, walking to the door of her cell, but not before letting out a sarcastic. "Tak vezhlivo." So polite.

The man brutally slapped her across the face and pushed the cow prodder against her side. Sashenka groaned as the surge of electricity coursed through her body. While the man dragged her to her Superior's office, she could hear the voice of her Papa scolding her for saying something that stupid to the guard. On a good day, this could cost her a hit or a punch, on a bad day, it could cost her a life.

After being at the facility for a few years now and throughout the early years of her life, Sashenka had the building somewhat memorized, so the long walk through series of corridors and passageways towards the Superior's office was no stranger to her. The guard unlocked the door for her and shoved her inside the office, but not before landing a kick to the back of Sashenka's legs. Once the door closed behind her, Sashenka was surprised to see that the Superior was not in his office, instead, one of Pierce's American colleagues was sitting at his desk.

"Subject Red?" He spoke, looking at Sashenka with cold obsidian eyes.

Sashenka nodded. She was unsure of how this man would deal with her, but her guess was that it definitely would be different to how Pierce dealt with her.

The man spoke again. "It appears that your Superior is not in Siberia at this time so he sent instructions for you." He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolding it before reading it aloud to Sashenka.

"Subject RED is to be deployed to Washington DC, where she will meet with the Winter Soldier to help him finish his target. The target is Nick Fury, he is staying in an undisclosed location that the Soldier managed to get his hands on. Target is already severely injured from the first attempt made on his life this morning in the centre of the city.

I trust that Subject RED will see the mission through this time. No unnecessary deaths or casualties, just the target." The man looked at Sashenka once, before folding the piece of paper and putting it back in the pocket of his coat.

"Get suited. You have ten minutes."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

It was dark outside by the time Steve Rogers got back to his small apartment complex in the middle of DC. He made sure not to make too much noise while parking his bike after the old lady living on the floor above complained about the noise waking her up during the night. Walking up the stairs towards his apartment, he was surprised to hear the voice of his neighbour talking on the phone to someone. At this time of the night, Steve assumed everyone was asleep.

"That's so sweet." She was holding a laundry basket in one hand, the phone trapped tightly between her unoccupied shoulder and ear. It took her a few seconds to notice Steve, whispering a quick "Hi." When she took notice of him walking past her.

"I gotta go though," The woman tried to get whoever was on the phone with her to hang up. "Okay. Bye." She hung up.

Steve, not knowing what to do, just awkwardly trailed in the hallway not far from her, hesitant on whether or not she was going to talk to him or if he should just call it a night and head inside his own apartment.

Kate held up the phone, smiling tiredly. "My aunt, she's kind of an insomniac." She chuckled when Steve smiled before chucking the phone in the laundry basket. "Yeah."

The super soldier's mouth opened and closed, like a fish gasping for breath as he debated on whether or not to say something. Eventually he just blurted out, "Hey, if you want, you're welcome to use my machine."

He didn't know why, but he knew that sounded bad and misplaced so he quickly filled in. "It might be cheaper than the one in the basement."

"Yeah? What's it cost?" Steve couldn't tell if she was genuinely intrigued or just entertaining a conversation with him not to make it weird. Still, he shot his shot with his next question. "A cup of coffee?"

Smooth, Rogers, real nice. He was never one for obvious flirting with ladies back in the old days. That was more his old friend's thing, being the ladies man out of the two. Steve remembered how he would get dragged on these nerve wracking double dates and he would end up with a lovely lady that he never had anything against. It's just that, Steve was awkward and shy and didn't know how to appeal to women in the way his friend did, so most of the time he would say something to make it odd and the woman would feel uncomfortable.

Kate smiled. "Thank you, but," There's always a 'but'. "I already have a load in downstairs and you really don't want my scrubs in your machine. I just finished a rotation in the infectious disease ward, so..."

Steve smiled and raised his hands in surrender. "Ah, well, I'll keep my distance."

"Hopefully not too far." Kate's reply almost went unnoticed by him, but he heard it.

She started walking back towards the basement to fetch her last load of clothes, so Steve started to pull his keys out to open his door. Just as he was about to unlock the door to his apartment, Kate turned around and called out to him. "Oh, and I think you left your stereo on." Before leaving him alone in the hallway.

That immediately caused the hair on the nape of his neck to stand up straight as a shiver ran through him. He distinctly remembered turning off his stereo and double checking before leaving the house. Yet, the soft 1940s jazz that he could hear through the door indicated that someone was in his apartment. Turning around, he decided on making an entrance through the window, in case someone was waiting behind the door to kill him. When he set foot into his apartment after climbing through the outside window, he noticed that the lights were off and that the music was coming from the living room. On his way there, he smoothly picked up his shield that was leaning against the wall in the hallway. Peeking from the corner of the room into the living room, he released a breath he didn't know he was holding once he realized that the only dangerous intruder in his house was a severely injured Nick Fury, lying on his armchair.

"I don't remember giving you a key."

Fury tried to sit up, emphasis on try, because his only managed to do so with a pained grunt leaving his lips. "You really think I'd need one?" Steve noticed the director was holding a phone in his uninjured hand. "My wife kicked me out."

"I didn't know you were married." Still suspicious, the once soldier didn't let his shield off his arm.

"A lot of things you didn't know about me." Fury didn't elaborate further.

"I know Nick, that's the problem." Steve moved forward to turn on the light but frowned when Fury turned it off mere seconds after. He typed something on his phone before revealing it to him.

EARS EVERYWHERE.

If annoyance was a person, one could assume it was Steve Rogers because the man could barely contain the roll of his eyes as he looked around the room for any hidden devices.

Seeing as he had nothing to say, Nick continued. "I'm sorry to have to do this but I had no other place to crash."

SHIELD COMPROMISED.

Catching on, Steve was the one to speak next. "Who else knows about your wife?"

YOU AND ME. "Just," Fury stood up and walked towards his "friend". "My friends."

"Is that what we are?"

"That's up to you." It only took Nick standing up for a storm of bullets to pierce his body multiple times, causing the man to drop to the floor with a agonising gasp. Thinking quickly, Steve grabbed his arm and dragged him into the kitchen. Looking out of the window, he saw a flash of red and the reflection of something metallic.

Nick grabbed his arm causing him to look away. In the palm of the director's hand was a small flash drive that would've looked perfectly ordinary had it not been in this man's hand. "Don't. Trust. Anyone." Fury rasped out holding the drive for Steve to take.

He heard the sound of his entrance door being forced open before someone called out. "Captain Rogers?" It was Kate, in the pink shirt she was wearing a few moments ago, holding a gun, ready to shoot anyone who got in her way.

Once she saw him, she relaxed her hold on the gun slightly. "Captain, I'm Agent 13 of SHIELD. Special Service. I'm assigned to protect you."

"Kate?" Steve asked in disbelief. "On whose orders?" He regained a firm, disciplined tone.

She brushed past him to lean near Nick's body. "His."

She pulled out a walkie talkie and spoke into it after checking his pulse. "Foxtrot is down. He's unresponsive. I need EMTs."

They both heard crackling on the other end. "Do we have a 20 on the shooter?"

"It's two of them. Tell them I'm in pursuit." Not awaiting Kate's reply, Steve readied his shield and jumped through the window of his apartment, over oncoming traffic and into an empty office's window. He could see two of them.

The first one was tall, fast and muscular. He was running at a faster speed than the second one, not looking back to check where she was. Steve immediately recognized the second shooter. Firstly, she was running at a much slower pace than her partner and secondly, the red hair was a dead giveaway to who she was. The Shadow Weaver.

The girl was running just a few meter ahead of him while the first shooter was on the roof. Needing to get her to stop, Steve had no choice but to throw his shield at her. She saw it coming and ducked mid run, making a sharp left through the small office corridor he was chasing her in. Steve persisted and when the shield came flying back into his hand he chucked it again, with more strength this time.

The assassin didn't see this one coming. The red, white and blue vibranium shield hit her right in the ribs causing her to stumble and miss a turn, crashing through the glass window. Right before falling, she turned around in a panic, trying to grip anything she could find to keep her from falling onto the busy highway. She found nothing, and her green and blue eyes, blown wide open with fear met Steve's light blue one's and she fell from the six story building, her small frail hand tried to grip the window frame, missing it by a few inches and scraping her hands against the leftover glass shards.

Steve didn't stay to watch her fall. Nick Fury's words echoed through his mind as he neared the first shooter.

Born in the early two thousands. The girl he had just caused to fall to her death could not have been more than fourteen years old. Steve had killed a child. An assassin yes, but a child.

He leaped through the window and onto the roof, throwing his shield at the first shooter just as he was about to jump off the roof. The man stopped mid run and caught the shield with a metal arm. Steve caught a brief look of the man, who looked like he had coal smeared across his eyes and was wearing a dark mask. There was a brief pause before the shield came flying back in his direction and he barely caught it as it landed hard against his chest pushing him a few feet back.

The man with the metal arm looked behind Steve, like he was waiting for someone. Steve followed his gaze, knowing that that someone had just plunged a six story fall to her death.

When he turned around again, the man was gone.

A few seconds later, he started to register the screaming.

Quickly, Steve sprinted to the edge of the room and the sight before him was a scene out of a horror movie.

In the middle of the freeway, cars were stopped in all sorts of ways, people were gathered around their vehicles with their cameras and phones out, filming the broken body of a child, twisted on the highway in an unnatural position for anyone to ever be in. No one was coming to her aid, but people were definitely panicking. Women were crying in horror at the scene, ushering their children away from the sight while the men filmed the scene. Yet, no one seemed to be calling for help.

"Shit." Steve slammed his shield on the ground in frustration before leaping off the building and making a run towards the girl's body. No one questioned why he was running towards the middle of the scene, but people started recognizing him once he set foot in the area where the child's body was, her red hair fanned out on the concrete ground caked in blood.

"Is that Captain America?"

"Captain America?"

"Isn't he supposed to be with the Avengers?"

"Is Iron Man here?"

Whispers ran through the crowd and spread around like wildfire yet Steve paid no attention to it as he kneeled down to press his finger against the girl's pulse, trying to find any sign that she was alive. He needed her to be alive. His jeans were drenched in blood, the red liquid seeping through his clothes. Then, he felt it, the irregular but very real beat of a pulse.

He also heard the gasping of the crowd and when he stood up and they saw him covered in a child's blood. He needed to get the girl medical treatment and he needed her to be back in the SHIELDs headquarters when and if she woke up so she could tell them everything she knew. For that he needed crowd control and SHIELD agents here right now. Pulling out one of the coms that Fury had given him after New York, he called Kate.

"Agent 13." She answered right away.

"I need crowd control on fifth avenue and SHIELD paramedics to get the second shooter medical care, right now."

The devil works hard, but SHIELD works smarter. Within ten minutes, the freeway was clear, cameras were confiscated and SHIELD agents had secured the perimeter while medics and Steve helped lift the girl in the pack of a car that would take her to headquarters. Steve stayed next to the child whenever he could, he was there when they listed out her injuries : punctured lung, fractured rib, internal bleeding, broken wrist, the list went on.

He was there when they analysed her blood and found traces of super soldier serum and stayed while they took some of his blood to save her life. As much as he felt anger towards the child for being part of such a macabre scenario, he also remembered that Fury had told him that the child had been surely brainwashed into committing these horrid acts. Plus, something about the girl fascinated him, he felt strongly protective of her and he hated it. He watched the doctors put a cannula through her nose to help her breathe and he stayed until they told him that they expected her to be fully recovered by tomorrow morning thanks to the super healing factor she also possessed.

Right before the doctors left, Steve approached the doctor wondering if the fact that they had drawn some of her blood meant that they could know who she came from. Unfortunately, the doctor told him that all information about the child was inaccessible to him.

"Sorry, sir. Fury's orders. You gotta respect a dead man's wishes." They had said.

He sat in the chair next to her hospital bed, watching the weak rise and fall of her chest as he pieced together all of the information that he had learned about the Shadow Weaver. Born in two thousand two, mute until very recently were among the many factors that made her so intriguing. But there were still some many unanswered question like, how had the child come into HYDRA's hands? Who was the man she followed?

"Captain Rogers?" He looked up to find Mariah Hill's red rimmed eyes staring at the girl in the bed.

She looked away and back at him. "You know you can't stay here forever right? She needs to be interrogated when she wakes up."

He didn't bother looking at her. "By who?"

"Only one person in SHIELD knows how to get to that kid."

Steve frowned. "What do you mean?"

Mariah sighed and approached the bed, slowly pulling up the hospital shirt of the girl to reveal a tattoo. The tattoo was a symbol, two triangles upside down, the tips touching each other.

"The symbol of the Red Room." Mariah answered his question before he even asked him. "See the date, that kid was the only graduate of the Black Widow program. You know who else graduated from that program before her?"

"Natasha." Steve finished.

Natasha was the one best qualified to interrogate the girl.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Ahhhhh! Cliffhanger? Sorryyyyyy. This chapter was my Christmas present to you guys so Merry (late) Christmas if you guys celebrate it! To all of you who are feeling lonely, sad and are suffering during the holidays, I LOVE YOU, I see you and don't worry it's going to get better soon! 2020 has been a crazy and very difficult year so don't be too hard on yourself you're doing amazing, I promise!

I hope you guys are excited for the next chapter because boy it's going to be a big one! It's the moment you guys have all been waiting for since you started reading this book and all of the chapters before this boil down to this moment so buckle up.

I'm going to the mountains with my family tomorrow for one week and I won't be able to bring my computer with me, so you guys are probably going to have to wait until after New Years for the next chapter put I promise it's going to be worth the wait!

Thank you for sticking with me while I write this series, it's all been crazy fun and very rewarding so THANK YOU!

edit 29/12/21 : the big brain energy i felt first writing this chapter was out of this world lmao

edit 28/02/2024 : no changes for this chapter, i re-read it a few days ago and i actually really like it strangely enough lmao
PS. go check out piper's newly released book !