Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

December 16th, 1991

A dark road twists through the forest, the leaves gently rustling in the wind. The Winter Soldier twists where she had propped herself up on the branches of a large oak tree. She watches as the headlights of a car snake through the tree line. A rifle on one of the sturdier branches of the tree, she peers down the scope as the car approaches, gently positioning her finger on the trigger.

The car is not alone, a motorbike follows it, its headlights turned off and the motor is silent, it stays a safe distance away from the car. The man atop the motorbike raises his left arm slightly, and the back lights on the car reflect off of the silver metal, signaling to the Soldier in the tree to get ready. The car was almost on the stretch of road the oak tree was arching over. The woman points the rifle down, mentally calculating where the tires of the car would be.

She takes her mask off, if today goes as planned, she won’t be needing it anyway. And if today didn’t go as planned, well, she would have bigger issues than the fact that someone had seen her face.

Her eyes scanned the sides of the road, coldness behind her eyes, a single thought in her mind,

У меня есть для тебя миссия. Санкционируй и Извлекай. The car was almost within her range, and for a second she could focus on the people in it, an elderly couple, the man behind the wheel, evidently, had just made some hilarious joke, as the woman was laughing uncontrollably and he had that satisfied grin on his face.

The next second her finger has pulled the trigger and the car is veering off into the ditch, smashing head-on into a tree, the crash resonated through the forest, but there was no one but them to hear it. The woman wasted no time putting her rifle away, closing the case, and jumping down to the side of the road, out of view from where the car was. She didn’t even notice the small camera positioned a meter from her face, but how could she, that was not her mission.

The motorbike was parked in the shadow between two of the lamps on the road, the man that had been driving it was approaching the car, his sure footsteps silent on the wet street. The man from the car had crawled out, spotting the woman in the shadows, a mirage of recognition passing over his face as he sees her uncovered face.

“Help my wife. Please. Help.” He pleads

The other Winter Soldier reaches the car, and the man on the ground looks up, his eyes widening, the Winter Soldier yanks him up by his hair.

“Seargent Barnes?” The man asks, and something shifts in the Winter Soldier’s gaze, his hand slackens for a second. The woman puts one hand in her pocket, fiddling with a piece of paper, she doesn’t know what it says, but she knows the change in her comrade’s body language may warrant her use of it.

“Howard?” The man’s wife moans from the passenger seat. The Winter Soldier responds by smashing his metal fist into the man’s face, twice. He drops his lifeless body, and moves around to the other side of the car, wrapping his hand around the wife’s neck and squeezing, maintaining eye contact with the woman in the shadows the whole time, until the wife’s body slumps forward.

The Winter Soldier then goes back around to where Howard’s body is lying, gesturing for the woman to come forward. She shoulders her rifle case and walks over to the man’s lifeless body. Hoisting him up by his armpits, she puts him back into the driver’s seat, as if to make it look like the impact of the crash killed him.

Something catches the eye of the other Winter Soldier, who takes out his pistol and fires a shot into the tree, a crunch sounding from where the bullet made impact with the hidden camera. He turns back around, making his way back to the car,

They open the trunk of the car, and next to several suitcases, there lays a silver box. Upon further inspection, it contains five blue packets on a white packing material. She closes it, nodding to her comrade, who walks back over to his bike, opening the seat up to reveal a storage space. She places the briefcase into it, and they speed off into the night, leaving the car and the bodies behind.

She lets him hand in the briefcase, there is work left for her to do, work his programming doesn’t allow him to do. Her handler leaves her several plane tickets by her cell, and they go from the forgotten Siberian village, back to the USA, to Ohio this time.

Chapter Text

2014

“One and two and three and four and—” A sigh, “If you don’t know the combo at this point, Rosemary, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.” Voss won’t yell, he won’t even insult, at least not really, but his disappointment is possibly even more scathing.

Rosemary has the brains to keep her eyes forward. As Voss prowls through the jumping ballerinas, his gaze fixed on Marianne, she tries her best to keep her gaze forward, but she can see him examine her in the mirror that covers the whole wall opposite them. “Arms up, Maisie,” he reminds her. She lifts them, pretending to feel a strain on her shoulders, and he moves on to his next victim.

By the time the class is over, Marianne has broken out in a light sweat, but she heaves breaths out nonetheless, copying the exhaustion of the women around her, no point drawing more attention to herself than explicitly necessary, though, in the warm haze of the studio, she’ll often forget just what she’s hiding from. “Hey pirate,” Maude, an awfully boring name for a girl who was anything but, floated elegantly toward Marianne, “Ready to head home, or are you planning to get some more crosses on Voss’s naughty list?” she wiggles her eyes. “Not that anyone could rival you with the amount of offenses in that black book.”

Marianne sighs, “For the last time, stop calling me pirate, I’m not even missing my whole leg.” She grins though, making her way to her gym bag, barely feeling the floor through her pointe shoes.

“Yeah, but you could argue that the knee is pretty important.” Maude smiles sweetly, “I can’t believe you can do ballet on a metal knee. How’d you lose it anyway?” Maude was nice, but sometimes she’d ask a question that was just insightful enough that it would catch Marianne off guard, but she must have sensed something, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I figured it was okay to ask since we’ve known each other for so long and I’ve—” Marianne holds her hand up, and Maude pipes down.

I don’t know- I can’t remember.

She hopes Maude can’t see her face drop, “Ice skating accident when I was 12.” She lifts her leg up and swings her calf in the air. Maude giggles, and Marianne puts her stuff away into her bag.

“Actually, Maisie, could we run through your part one time, now that you’re tired to make sure you can do it in the middle of the performance?” Voss yells over the clamor of women packing up. Giselle smirks, Rosemary rolls her eyes, and Maude flares her nostrils at them. Marianne pauses, tucking the ribbon of her pointe back in, and stands up. “Great, let’s start from that arabesque.

Marianne walks over to the center of the dance floor, some of her fellow dancers watch her, some with contempt, some with envy. Those that don’t watch her make their way out, through the heavy doors that guard the room. The floor is slick with sweat in some places, and the room is entirely too large for her to be dancing alone in.

She knows why Voss is doing this, or has at least narrowed it down to two options: one, he hates her and wants to make her feel as uncomfortable and unwelcome as possible, or two, he knows she can do better, be better than a corps dancer who’s always stuck in the back. She genuinely hoped it was the first, the second would require her to draw attention to herself from the outside, so as to not risk wrath within the company. She knew it was not proper for a corps dancer to get a solo section in a performance, but unfortunately for her, the company her friend had a contact in considered themselves ‘avant-garde’, and so they did not care what was proper and what was not.

“Gimme one sec to find the music,” Voss whispered from the computer, but the sound carried through the slowly emptying room. As much as her exhaustion had been an act, she was tired, and her bad knee was sore. “Alright,” Voss turned to the rest of the room. “Class is over, you guys can go. I didn’t want to waste our time on this.” Nobody who was still watching went anywhere, Maude brought her thumbs up in what was meant to be a supportive gesture.

Marianne took a deep breath, stretching her feet, she got up into the arabesque just as the music started. She let her mind wander as she went through the steps, aware of Voss’s disproving face, as it got grimmer and grimmer every second. She twirled lazily and didn’t lift her legs nearly high enough, she got to the final pose three beats after the music ended, her arms low and bent.

“You’re kidding right,” There is an edge of anger in Voss’s voice now, Marianne flinches back, and the tone awakens something in her, like a memory she can’t quite place. “I’ve seen ten-year-olds do better than that. I’ve seen you with half your leg taped up do better than that.” He shuts the computer with a snap and walks toward her.

Marianne slinks back, toward the dark windows, the slap slap slap of Voss’s feet on wood changes to the clacking of heels on marble, and a gentle tide of voices in her head begins to hum, louder and louder.

Please not now, please.

This has happened before, usually as the lights flicker on and off in the pharmacy where she works, but it has never happened here, it cannot happen here. “I’m tired Voss, my knee hurts and I’ve got the morning shift tomorrow, why don’t you let someone else do this?” She pleads, gently resisting the clamor building up in her mind.

“No. I’ve had enough, Maisie.” His voice is dangerously level, “I can’t understand why you won’t try, you’re easily the best dancer here, yet you stumble around like a bull in a china shop.”

Again. Do better this time.

Marianne stays quiet, worried any words out of her mouth will merge what is going on inside and what is happening outside.

You’re made of marble, go again.

“Come on. Just this once; do it the way we all know you can.” Voss pleads.

Rosemary smirks, “Stop wasting your time, Voss, she won’t do it, not that she could if she wanted to.”

“You’ve got plenty of willing and much more talented dancers,” Giselle adds, her gaze raking down Marianne’s body. “And we all still have our original joints.”

Pain twinges through Marianne’s knee at the reminder.

You’ll break them.

“C’mon Maisie, do you not want to prove them wrong?”

Again. You’ll never fail. Again.

The voices have risen to a deafening clamor. Another language has replaced English, one Marianne knows but cannot place. It takes all her energy not to sway, as the darkening at the edges of her vision threatens to overwhelm her sight.

Daybreak—again!—Seventeen—marble—

The music starts again, and this time Marianne finds herself moving, her movements precise and sharp. The memory of a cane hitting her back and legs keeps her moving quickly.

Again!—freight car— you’ll never fail—longing.

Her body moved, the way she had always wanted to, but her fear kept her back. She let her old instincts take hold, keeping her head high and keeping her legs strong. She moved with practiced ease, trying her best to remain elegant, not butchering Voss’s choreography with her ruthlessness.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen.

Longing. Rusted.

Longing-longing-longing- lon—

The words count down as the section comes to an end, and she finishes the final pirouette, her arms positioned correctly and her head high. Voss stopped the music, and Marianne heaved several breaths, her exhaustion no longer an act.

“See, I knew you could—” Voss’s voice is bright but trails off as Marianne collapses to the floor, the voices too much, too loud, too—

Again

Again

Again

Again

Again

You’ll never fail—

“Maisie!”

“Maisie, snap out of it.” Marianne opens her eyes, Maude’s concerned face swimming into focus in front of her.

Marianne opened her mouth, finding it bone dry, Maude handed her a glass of water. “You have a lot of explaining to do.” Voss’s voice is taut, but she can see the twinkle in his eye as he crouches down to her. “Would you mind explaining to me why you half-ass your way through rehearsal when you can dance like a Russian ballerina hopped up on trimetazidine?”

Marianne stays quiet, clawing her way back to her feet, avoiding Voss’s and Maude’s eyes. “I’ve gotta go.”

“No. I think you should stay.” A new voice spits from the doorway. Marianne looks up, and almost falls right back down. “I’ve got some questions for her.” Rosemary, Giselle, and the rest of their posse escape from the room, sending looks that could almost be apologetic Marianne’s way.

Voss is by the door in an instant, but Marianne can still see the woman. She’s a redhead, full lips and defiant eyes, so familiar it sends bolts of lightning through Marianne’s chest. She backs away from the door, her steps awkward as the pain in her feet and knee sinks in. She sits down, clawing at her bag, hastily untying her pointe shoes.

The woman muscles her way past Voss, and in an instant she’s by Marianne’s side, putting a cold hand on hers, keeping it still so she can’t untie the ribbons around her ankle. “I’ve just got a couple of questions about what happened at the Triskelion.” Marianne shuffles away, her heart in her throat as she wrests her shoes from her feet, throwing them and her toe pads in her bag, and pulls her boots on. The woman just watches from her crouch.

“That’s ridiculous, Maisie wasn’t even in DC when the Triskelion fell.” Maude counters.

The woman turns to her, “Leave us, please, Maisie and I should really be discussing this in private.” She smiles sweetly, but her eyes spell murder.

“No.” Marianne croaks, “I’m leaving.” The woman moves to grab her, but Marianne wrests herself from her grip, too strongly, as the woman flinches, shaking her wrist.

“Fine. If you weren’t in the Triskelion I’ll ask something else.” The woman snarls, “What do you remember of Siberia? The base, where they held you like cattle? What about your associate, the Ghost? Or what about the Starks?” She rattles off. Marianne’s eyes swim as her head splits with pain.

“I don’t— I don’t—” She stuttered, the words tumbling from her mouth in a clunky jumble.

“Odessa? Kennedy? Lopez? The North Institute?” Loud, too loud. The ringing in her ears reaches a crescendo, the flashes are becoming more frequent and longer. “The Winter Soldier Program?”

“Stop!” Marianne clutches her head in her hands, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, let me go.” She pleads, but the woman is unrelenting, her voice is drowned out by the noise in her head. The woman rises, the controlled look on her face replaced with rage, her hands are clenched and her body is tense. Despite her weakened state, Marianne tries to gauge the woman’s weaknesses.

The woman smiles, “Fine, maybe you don’t remember any of that, but you should know this. Where is the Winter Soldier?”

The pain in Marianne’s head reaches a breaking point, and the darkness takes her, away from the studio, away from the present.

Chapter Text

Marianne comes to in the ER down the street, IVs taped to her arm and a monitor beeping slowly. The beeps surge as Marianne notices the woman sitting by the foot of her bed. The woman’s hair looks even more orange in the room's cold light. The moment she notices that Marianne is awake, she draws the curtain around her bed closed, Marianne only gets a glimpse at the hospital beyond her now turquoise-walled room.

The woman walks up to Marianne, “I wasn’t sure it was you, but your face when you slept gave it away.”

“You mean when you overloaded my brain so much it shut down, if you want to call that sleep, sure, but—” She sat up, examining the IV in her vein, and reached for it, “I don’t have health insurance, and I do not have the money to pay for this.”

The woman holds Marianne’s wrist down, “Don’t.” But Marianne wrenches her hand off with so much strength it throws the woman through the curtain and onto the floor. She’s intrigued now, so she rests her hand on her IV but doesn’t move to try and remove it.

The woman gets up, rolling her shoulders, before sauntering back toward Marianne’s bed, “You don’t remember me, that much is clear. My name is Natasha, and yours is not Maisie, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Wow. You found me out. Can you leave now?”

“No. I still need your answers to my questions.” She sits on Marianne’s bed, leaning on her arm causally, “I have a friend who needs to find the Winter Soldier. You might remember him, I think you punched his lights out.” She smiles.

Marianne sighs, flopping back onto the bed. The pillow is too soft, so she sinks through to the hard bed. “I don’t know, okay, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.”

“I didn’t even arrive in DC until five months ago, the Triskelion was almost a year ago. I don’t know you, or any of this Winter Soldier stuff.” She hoped her lie would be covered by the truths she spoke. “I don’t know what happened back there, so please, leave me alone.” She pulls on the IV gently, and it rips from her arm. She winces back the pain, grabbing a fistful of tissues from the box on her bedside table to help quench the trickle of blood.

She checks the clock on the wall opposite her, 2:18 a.m., great, it’s not like she has the 8 a.m. shift at the pharmacy tomorrow. The monitor by her bed is now beeping frantically, but nobody is coming to check on her, in fact, the whole ward is eerily quiet, probably Natasha’s doing.

The woman watches in dismay as Marianne walks out from the ward, clutching her bag of belongings tightly. She dips into the bathroom, the ward where she had been lying is mostly deserted, and the nurse at the desk doesn’t pay her any attention. Marianne changes into her ballet clothes quickly, ignoring the stench of slowly marinating sweat.

She shoves the door of the bathroom open, just to come face to face with Natasha. “Please, it’s late, I’ve got work in the morning.” She tries to shove past Natasha, aware of her strength now, and not wanting to cause commotion.

“Fine. I’ll leave you alone.” Natasha drawls. Marianne nods, and the woman lets her pass through. “Marianne?” Natasha asks tentatively, Marianne’s blood runs cold as she turns around, “So you weren’t lying? I know you don’t remember this, but you tried to help me once, almost twenty years ago. I haven’t forgotten, and despite the things I’m sure you’re beginning to remember, I want you to remember that despite all the bad, twisted, horrible things you did, you also did some good. And I’ve wanted to thank you, for a while now.” She sighs.

Marianne stumbles backward, Natasha’s words rocking her body. She doesn’t remember, that much is true, but she has woken up, sweaty and disoriented, the memory of blood on her hands and murder in her eyes. She remembers the feeling of looking down at someone past the barrel of a gun, seeing their eyes go from paralyzing fear to a freeing type of acceptance.

If Natasha notices the look in her eyes, she doesn’t comment on it and strides down the hall and out of the hospital ward. Marianne looks down at her hands and follows her out of the building.

It is only when the frigid air of DC February hits her skin that she realizes she has left her stuff at the studio. Luckily she was only a couple blocks away, unluckily the chip she’d need to get in was still in her bag, which is still somewhere in the studio.

Somewhere between standing outside the ER and jogging up to the studio, she decided that she was going to break in —something she assumed was left behind from her pre-Potomac dipping days. She managed to find the side entrance in the dark and dingy alley and forced the door open just far enough for her to slip through into the studio.

Being in the studio after the lights were turned off was like being in school after lessons for the day had ended, wrong and eerie. Some lights were still on, as dancers technically had access to the studio 24/7, as long as they had their chip. Marianne followed the sporadic lights to the room her lesson had been in that evening, slipping in to grab her bag, before closing the door and making her way back to the entrance.

She’s made her way down the first flight of stairs when she realizes she’s being watched. Her neck tingles and her hands twitch, she glances back quickly and can swear that something moved in the shadows. The shadow slinks around the stairs above her, freezing in place when it notices Marianne’s gaze.

Marianne puts her hand into her bag, her fingers curling around her gun. The shadow is over six feet tall, and strangely familiar, if a dark shadow can be familiar. She sprinted down the steps and into the lobby below. The shadow didn’t follow her, but the strange feeling did, the feeling that came over her whenever she thought about what happened before she woke up on the bank of the Potomac, the feeling that came over her when she realized she could not remember.

Something Natasha had said had stuck in her mind, ‘I want you to remember that despite all the bad, twisted, horrible things you did, you also did some good.’ what bad? What good? And why couldn’t she remember any of it? Why couldn’t she remember why a hunk of metal had replaced a part of her leg, why couldn’t she remember why her eyes darted to the exits any time she entered a room?

She had been standing in the lobby for a good three minutes before she remembered it was time to get home. The shadow from the stairwell hadn’t followed her, maybe it was a good thing, maybe there was a good reason why her past was hidden from her.

She wouldn’t dare get a bus at this hour, so she traipsed through the mushy snow for half an hour until she got to her apartment in northwestern DC. She unlocked the rickety door of the complex, only to be greeted by yellow light and peeling wallpaper. She tiptoed over the matted carpet to her unit, unlocking the three locks she had installed, much to her landlord’s dismay, she had not forgotten to point out that having extra locks on the door could in fact be a bonus in this part of town.

She dropped her bag to the floor and headed straight to the shower. She scrubs herself down quickly before curling up into bed, falling asleep just as her head hit the pillow.

The dreams came again, mirages and flickers from her life before, when she had been someone different. Phantom pain and flashes danced in her mind as she was stolen further and further away into the past.

Suddenly, she was in a child’s body again, sitting on the ground in a turn-of-the-century European-style apartment. The sky outside was grey as she watched the street below, people milling about. A rap sounded on the window, so she turned around. A tall, dark-haired man stared down at her, affection creeping through his dark gaze.

“Mari, this is Dr. Erskine,” He said. “He’s here to give you some medicine. It’s nothing to be afraid of, you remember how I was sick last year.”

Marianne’s dream self nodded, “Yes, papa.”

The man smiled, the skin around his mouth stretched strangely, it had started doing that after her father had come back from his illness. “Well, Dr. Erskine helped me then, and this time, he’ll give you a small vaccination to prevent it from happening to you.”

“Yes, this type of illness can be hereditary,” The doctor shifted on the spot uncomfortably, “It’s nothing to worry about, just a little prick, and then we’ll shine a light on you to make sure the seru- vaccination worked.”

Marianne crossed her arms, “I’m nine, I’m not scared of needles anymore.” She registered a twitch of pride on her father’s face.

“Yes, come along now, Mari, the sooner you get this vaccination, the sooner we can go to Munich.” Her father held out his hand for her to take, which she promptly did, because why wouldn’t she trust her father?

Marianne woke up in the morning, head pounding as the alarm reminded her that it was six-thirty and time to get up. Her knee throbbed uncontrollably, so she reached for her brace.

Moving around in her brace took most of the strain off her knee, but it still sent jolts of pain through her thigh any time she moved. She limped her way around the apartment, throwing herself together a breakfast while reading the messages she had accumulated since last night. Voss wanted her in for a private after work, Marianne flexed her knee, clenching her teeth as the pain sent black spots dancing across her vision, fat chance she was going to dance today. Maude wanted to go out for coffee, which sounded like a much more pleasant alternative to gritting her teeth and pretending her knee didn’t hurt like the devil while spinning around.

She sent Maude an affirmative message while telling Voss to politely shove it, mentioning that her knee might be hurting a little bit to get him to lay off. She knew it was a low blow, but it wasn’t her that wanted to skip, since yesterday, something deep inside her had started crawling to the surface, yearning to return to the dance floor. It was a tragedy she physically couldn’t today.

And the thought of facing Giselle’s posse after passing out after Natasha asked her a couple of questions was less than appealing. Plus she would still get to see Maude, which was important as she was her only friend in the city that was slowly starting to bare its ugly side to her.

She chugged down the last of her coffee and made her way to the door. The cold winter air biting at her heels from the apartment’s badly insulated windows. She limped out the door, her coat hastily thrown on and scarf slowly unraveling from around her neck. She limps her way to the bus stop, holding onto the buildings beside her for stability as she slowly gets used to the pain.

Chapter Text

The bus ride to the pharmacy is mostly uneventful. A university student saw Marianne limping to catch the bus and offered her her seat, smiling down at her with a mixture of pity and empathy. The girl couldn’t have been much older than Marianne, not that Marianne knew how old she was, but Agnes had taken a long look at her before placing her solidly in the 22-27 range. Her passport said she was born in 1991, but if there was anything Marianne knew for certain, it was that that was certainly not her date of birth.

Getting up from her seat proved the greatest challenge yet; ignoring the pitying glances as they bore into her soul, she scrambled heavily to her feet and limped off the bus. The pharmacy was far enough from the bus stop that Marianne managed to find an awkward rhythm to her gait that hurt slightly less. Relief flooded her as she opened the side door and grabbed the railing by the stairs, slowly hauling herself up.

The lights in the back of the pharmacy lit up as she passed by the motion sensors, revealing a short hallway at the top of the stairs, with the pharmacists’ main break room on one end, and a door to the shop and storage areas at the other end.

Agnes was lounging on one of the beanbags, waiting for the rest of the morning shift to come in. She looked up as she heard Marianne cursing her way up the stairs, huffing and puffing to keep herself from swearing profusely.

“Oh, goodness, please tell me you haven’t come in if your knee is acting up.” She’s on her feet and by Marianne’s side in an instant, helping her up the remaining stairs and steadying her as she catches her breath.

Marianne smiles, hoping it looks happy and not pained, “I’m fine, Agnes, really. Voss just made me do my solo part a bunch, and I overloaded my knee. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“I thought I told you that if you were having trouble walking, you could tell me. Trust me, it would really not be an issue for you to miss a shift.” Agnes is taking Marianne’s bag and coat, hanging them up as Marianne sags against the wall.

“It’ll hurt the same no matter where I am, and here I can at least be doing something to stave off the crazies.” She walks forward, doing her best to hide the pain.

Agnes must have noticed her grimace, because she rushed up to Marianne, guiding her down onto one of the poufs that populated the space.“Jesus, sit down, let me at least get you a crutch, I’ll have Lydia-Jane bring you your shoes.”

Three minutes later, she’s back, Lydia-Jane in tow, carrying her arch-friendly nurse shoes. Agnes handed Marianne her crutch and set down a glass with a tablet fizzing away in the water. “Don’t think you’re off the hook, young lady,” Agnes smirked, “But if you’d be so nice as to get yourself set up by the prescription-less counter, that’d be great.”

Marianne smiled, nodding, sliding out of her outdoor shoes and into her nurse-like shoes wordlessly, ignoring Lydia-Jane’s prying gaze. Whenever they spoke face to face, Lydia-Jane was nice enough, proving true to her Southern hospitality, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t the most ruthless gossip in the entire pharmacy, the ringleader of a posse not unlike Giselle’s at the studio. They jabber away incessantly in the storage room while Marianne’s out front, blissfully unaware that Marianne can hear every word they say.

She limped her way to the front of the store, her gait slightly less unstable as she leaned on the crutch for support. Agnes followed her, carrying the untouched glass of medicine water. “Drink up, it’ll help, at least a little.”

Marianne set up, and the pharmacy came to life around her as the rest of the morning shift girls came in. At 8:30 a.m. sharp, the sign was flipped to ‘open,’ and the door was unlocked. The morning was majorly uneventful until about 10:24 when the girls decided to take their first break.

“What do you think it was this time?” Lydia-Jane, breaking open the discussion.

“I still think she’s faking it myself, I’ve never seen a knee injury that’s so inconsistent.”

“Especially considering she manages to do ballet most days.”

“Plus, she’s only here 'cause she knows Agnes somehow, I doubt she’s even finished high school.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if she was a junkie, using Agnes to get her next fix.”

“It would explain why she passes out in the closet.”

“Hello?” A voice broke her from her silent eavesdropping, “I’d like to get these, please.” It belonged to a man. He towered over the desk, his cap pulled low and his hands clad in leather gloves. He had dumped an impressive range of non-prescription medicines in front of her. She slowly started scanning her way through the aspirins, ibuprofen, brain supplements, fish oil, vitamin B, and the works.

She smiled gingerly, trying not to let on that she could hear her coworkers gossiping about her, “Did you find everything okay?” She asked in her best customer-service voice. He nodded, glancing around the pharmacy nervously.

She supposed it was strange; most people his age should be at work right now. “Would you like a bag?” His gaze flicked back to her, and something about those blue eyes sent her reeling. It was the same feeling as with Natasha, that feeling that sent her aching to remember, and led only to disappointment when she realized she could not.

“Sure, add these in too,” He handed her two high-fiber saltine cracker boxes. She chuckled, “What?” Suspicion clouded his voice.

“These are my favorite, even though my friends—” Lydia-Jane and her posse had been silent for a suspicious amount of time since she’d started with the customer “—make fun of me that it's old people food’, and it is true that I’ve never seen anyone under the age of 65 buy these.” She smiled, adding them to the already heaping bag.

He pressed his lips together in what might have been a smile, “Hey, nothing wrong with ‘old people food’, there’s a reason they’ve lived this long.”

“That’s what I tell them. Your total is $31.82, will you pay by cash or card?” She held up the ears of the bag in his direction while he patted down his pockets.

He found his wallet and pulled out some bills while mumbling, “Cash, please.”

“Are you a member of our rewards program?” She added hurriedly, “If not, we can get you started, all we need is your name and—”

“No thanks,” He cut her off, handing her two twenties. She slid her fingers down them surreptitiously. Ascertaining that they were real, or really convincing counterfeits, she dug around in her tray for change.

“Here ya go,” She handed him the eight dollars and eighteen cents, and he stuffed them into his wallet before grabbing his bag and leaving through the door swiftly. She returned her focus to the jabber session behind her, only to find it was still silent. The man shot her one last look and turned to leave. That was when it hit her.

It was like a bucket of cold water on a hot day, like taking a step forward only to realize there was a drop in front of you, it was falling out of your bed at night. She forgot where she was, who she was, for a second, she reverted back, back to that creature that scrambled away from the shore like a cornered animal. Her back crashed into the racks of medicine behind her, the shelf rattled, but nothing fell.

It only lasted for a second, but by the time she had regained her senses, Lydia-Jane and the rest of them were by her side, staring down at her disapprovingly. “That guy has been coming in here for the last week, always at different times.” Marianne straightens and composes her features as Lydia continues, “You’ve been on break every time he’s been here, but today’s the first day he’s come to the counter, and it's coincidentally the first day you’ve been at it.”

“English, please, Lydia,” Marianne huffed, trying to get her hands to stop tingling by linking her fingers and squeezing.

Lydia smirked, “You know him, wouldn’t be surprised if you know him. And I want to know why he has to stalk you to your job instead of finding some other way to get in touch.”

“I’ve never seen that man before in my life.” Even as she said it, Marianne knew it was a lie, but Lydia seemed to buy it, or pretended to, at least.

“Fine, but I’ll have you know, telling your junkie friends where you work so they can come in and be a nuisance to customers is greatly discouraged.”

“Noted.” Marianne shouldered her way past Lydia and the rest of her group. She plopped herself down onto the couch in the lounge area. The tingling in her hands had spread to the rest of her body, and she started shaking. She could feel the lights flickering around her. She closed her eyes, but the strobe persisted behind her closed eyelids. She pressed her hands to her face, digging her nails into her scalp.

The ground tilted out from beneath her, and the last thing she felt was the rough fabric of the sofa as her face dug into it—

“I’m so sorry, Herr Schmidt, but there’s nothing we can do; in this state, the serum will only kill her.” A man, circular glasses, rotund figure, lab coat.

“How long until you can get another dose?” Another man, black leather, close-cropped black hair, rubbery face, her father. “The sooner we get started, the sooner HYDRA can begin building their army. But an army cannot stand without its general.”

“A couple years, two, if we’re lucky. But we can start with the wiping if you’d like, we’ll just have to be gentler, since her physiology will not be as strong as we anticipated.”

“Fine, Herr Zola, but it must be done soon. War will start soon, the people need their Lebensraum, and Hitler is becoming restless. The timeline has changed.”

“Hitler is a maniac, I refuse to listen to that bohemian, HYDRA’s goals will not be rushed for an idealistic politician.”

“Careful, talk like that and there may not be a HYDRA to speak of.” The men shifted, as if they had just noticed Marianne, and she got the feeling that that was not a conversation she had meant to overhear.

“Marianne, it appears the vaccination will have to be postponed, Herr Zola does not yet have the completed product. How about we walk home and get some Eis on the way?”

“Okay, papa.”

“Marianne, we’ll be seeing each other soon. Your father is a great man, and it is an honor to work with him.”

“Yes, yes, come now, Marianne—”

“Maise? Maise? Maise!” Someone was shaking her, their face slowly coming into focus. It was Maude.

“Maude— wha— what are you doing here?” Marianne rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Maude propped Marianne up before taking a seat next to her on the couch. “Yeah, but Voss sent me out for some stuff to the store down the street, so I thought I’d come to visit you.”

“Okay.” Marianne’s throat was raw, so the word was little more than a croak. “That’s nice of you.”

Maude smiled, “I asked Agnes where you were, and she said you were on break. I came back here, and you were out on this couch, mumbling in German. I didn’t know you spoke German.”

Marianne shifted uncomfortably; she had no doubt she had just recounted the conversation her father had had with Zola out loud, for anyone to hear. She was lucky nobody here spoke German, or she’d suppose she’d have a lot of explaining to do.

Agnes barged into the room, handing Maude a glass of water. Maude tipped it gently into Marianne’s mouth, and she graciously swallowed the coppery liquid. She coughed a little, but the dryness in her throat was gone. She could hear Lydia snickering somewhere, but decided to ignore it.

Two incidents in less than 24 hours, first Natasha and then the man, she was sure it was he who set off this particular chain of events.

Maybe she had to get out of DC.

Marianne sighed. She liked DC, she liked most of the girls at Voss’, and she liked working for Agnes; she liked the way the city allowed her to disappear among throngs of locals and tourists. But she also knew that if she caught a glimpse of the Potomac today, God forbid the ruins of the S.H.I.E.L.D. triskelion, she would fall right back into that dream state.

“Maisie, did you catch that?” Agnes was looking at her with a mixture of pity and curiosity.

Marianne swallowed self-consciously. “No, sorry, it seems my mind is elsewhere today.”

“Maude and I were talking, considering the incident that happened last night, I suggested you two take the afternoon off, and go sit down somewhere so you can collect your thoughts.” The most important part of that statement was left unsaid, and maybe you could explain to Maude what is going on.

Marianne knew that Agnes was familiar with her past, just how much remained unclear, but Agnes would never reveal more than she had to. Her response was always ‘telling you would cause more harm than good’, so Marianne left it at that.

Plus, she would always have the dreams.

“Let’s go then, you look like you need food.”

Maude sat Marianne down in their favorite cafe, and left to get them something to eat and drink. Marianne slowly surveilled the cafe, carefully cataloguing the faces around her. One made her stop in her tracks; the man from the pharmacy earlier was standing across the street, his cap was pulled low, and his body was turned, but Marianne still felt the cold daggers of his gaze on her face.

She shifted carefully in her seat, not wanting him to realize she knew he was there. She didn’t know who he was, but she knew that she had known him before, maybe even, how had Lydia so eloquently put it? Known him known him. She shuddered, and if he had found her, did that mean she would go back? Did she want to go back? Something told her no, that even this small existence in the corner of the world she had carved out for herself was better than whatever had come before, than from wherever she had been that had turned her into that animal that woke up on the side of the Potomac.

“Stop thinking so hard.” Maude sat down opposite her, and placed a black coffee and sugary-looking pastry in front of her, “Got you the Turkish, even though I can’t understand how you can drink that stuff.” Maude returned with her own coffee and cake.

Marianne smiled, “Thanks, Maude, it means a lot.”

“Of course, don’t worry about it.” Maude sliced into her cake, “I know you hate talking about your past, and I hate asking.” She cleared her throat, and Marianne knew what came next… “But this is the second incident in less than 24 hours; it’s never been so close together.” Her eyes were fixed on the cake, which she was anxiously chopping into smaller and smaller pieces.

Marianne sat there in silence for a while, playing with the idea of telling Maude the truth, and conversely, coming up with increasingly ridiculous lies she could tell her. In the end, she opted for the truth; what more did she have to lose?

“I suppose I haven’t been exactly forthcoming with the information.” At that moment, Maude’s eyes snapped up, and almost guiltily dropped back down to her cake, “and it’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that…” Maude had stopped decimating her cake, and Marianne could almost hear the breath she was holding rattle around in her chest…

“It’s just that I can’t remember anything from before about a year ago.” She kept it as vague as she could, knowing Maude would badger the information out of her eventually.

“What happened a year ago?”

“I… uh… You remember what happened with the Triskelion and the helicarriers?”

Maude dropped her fork, ignoring the clattering, “The ones the woman mentioned yesterday?”

“Yes, those ones.” Marianne swallowed. She knew she was putting Maude in danger, if Natasha ever found out about this, Marianne had no doubts she would do whatever was necessary to get Maude to talk, “I wasn’t exactly truthful when I said I had come to DC after that.”

Maude had wrapped her arms around herself. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the first thing I remember is waking up on the shore of the Potomac, my wrist broken and my knee on fire, drenched in water as the helicarriers rained debris all around me.” Maude swallowed, “And ever since then, I’ve been having dreams, vivid dreams, so realistic they can only be memories, and I don’t know what they mean.” She brought up a hand to her face and found that it came back wet; tears were streaming down her face as she hacked out a sob. The cafe was thankfully empty, and the man had disappeared from the corner.

“So everything you’ve told me about your life—“

“Has been a lie, or maybe it hasn’t, since I cannot remember. But I know I knew that woman, somehow, and today, at work, before I passed out, some man came in, and I knew him too.”

Maude sighed, putting her head in her hands, “Maisie, I hate that I have to be the one to ask you this, but are you high?”

Marianne froze, unsure of what to say to that, “Come again?”

“Are you using right now?”

“Using what?”

“Jesus, I don’t know, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Maude, I’m sure. Do you want me to do a piss test?”

“No, I… I believe you, okay, just had to make sure.”

“You don’t believe me. This was a waste of time.” Marianne begins to pack up, leaving most of her coffee and pastry untouched.

Maude grimaces, “No. I promise I believe you, it’s all just a little—“

“Far-fetched? Why didn’t you say that instead of asking if I was on drugs?” Marianne shoulders her bag and grabs her crutch, ignoring the pain in her knee, which seems to have subsided a little since she had sat down. “I’m leaving, Maude, okay? I need some time to process this. Tell Voss I’ll be in tomorrow.”

“No, Maisie, please, I want to hear more.” Marianne scoffed and left the cafe, where Maude was making a hasty telephone call.

She found herself back at her apartment, fuming as she replayed the conversation in her head again and again. She should have lied, told Maude that her breakdowns were because of the stress Voss was putting on her, because her parents were estranging themselves from her, anything but the truth.

“You’re an idiot, Marianne,” she whispered as she approached her apartment, freezing as she heard the noise inside, a soft drumming. Someone was inside her apartment, someone was tapping their foot impatiently inside her apartment.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t someone, but rather several someones that Marianne could hear inside her apartment. It had to be Natasha, Natasha and whoever she was working for, or someone even worse. Marianne steeled herself; her knee still hurt, but the pain took a backseat as adrenaline started coursing through her veins.

Low voices, from inside, she pressed her ear to the door, a man, “Are you sure, Agent Romanov, that this woman is the Winter Soldier? Remember, we no longer have S.H.I.E.L.D. behind us; we cannot afford to be breaking and entering into some random woman’s apartment.”

Natasha replied, carefully measuring out her words, “Yes, Nick, she might as well have confirmed it last night in the ER.”

“Remind me, Agent,” A different woman, more American, her voice faster, “why didn’t you grab her there? From what you’ve said, she was incapacitated and would not have posed a massive issue.”

“Old debts, Hill, I owe her my life.”

The man cleared his throat, “She’s dangerous, Romanov, she’s wiped out several of our best agents. She and Ward managed to operate inside Coulson’s task force without our knowledge for months.” Marianne could hear him pace the length of her apartment, which wasn’t very far, “Not to mention the string of confirmed and suspected assassinations and terror plots to her name.”

“She’s a scared girl, who knows what HYDRA did to them to keep them complacent.” Natasha argued, “If it’s anything like the Red Room, she’d have had no choice.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she is one of the most dangerous assassins of the 20th and 21st centuries.”

“You’re right, but we should still approach this with caution, who knows what could happen if her fight or flight kicks in?”

Nick sighed, “We are, Romanov, that’s why we didn’t bring in a task force to round her up like a feral animal.”

Marianne slowly cataloged what she heard, and the amount of time she could spend behind this door was limited. If any of what she had heard was true, she could take three people, right? They were getting impatient; she could hear three sets of feet pacing around her living room. She needed to go in, get her things, get her notebooks, and leave the country. Her mind had already canvassed the city, pinpointing the three drop boxes she knew would have what she needed.

She started unlocking the door, noticing the sudden stillness from inside the apartment. As she unlocked the third and final lock, she took a deep breath before shoving the door open, lunging for the first person she saw. She tackled them to the ground. It was the other woman, Hill, who tried to wrestle herself from Marianne’s grip, but Marianne managed to overpower her and slam her shoulders into the floor so hard she could feel the woman’s teeth clack.

Natasha was already grabbing her arms and pulling her off of Hill, dragging her to her feet. Marianne pulled back before twisting, throwing Natasha into her dining table, which collapsed under her. Grabbing Hill’s gun as it got dangerously close to her face, Marianne twisted it from the other woman’s grip and fired several shots at the man who had stood in the corner while the fight happened in the middle of the room. She got him in the side, nothing major, but he swore like a sailor and muttered what she could swear was a “Not again, you son of a bitch.”

Hill tried to rush to the man’s side, but Marianne tightened her grip around her wrist, flinging her to the ground. Hill recovered quickly, but took a step back, as Marianne, still gaining her footing, turned to Natasha’s fist, making contact with her face. Marianne staggered back, right into Maria’s arms, which locked around her in a vice-like grip.

Natasha rushed to Nick’s side, and Marianne used the chance to wrest herself from Hill’s grasp, bucking her shoulders with enough force to make the woman let go. She kept hold of one of the woman’s arms, pulling her close, wrapping an arm around her throat. “Why are you here?”

Hill let out a strangled gasp, which got the attention of Natasha. Marianne flexed her arms, showing Natasha she would snap Hill’s neck if she tried anything. “You’re dangerous,” Hill managed. “Look what you’ve done.”

“I wouldn’t have done it if you three hadn’t broken into my place.”

Natasha sighed, “I tried to bring you in peacefully.” Noticing Marianne’s raised eyebrows, “I could’ve been more sensitive, but a lot of this, it’s still fresh.”

“Tell me about it.”

“And emotionally charged. We just want to talk.”

Marianne scoffed, “People who just want to talk don’t stalk you and break into your house.” Hill was straining, and her face was a worrying shade of red, so Marianne loosened her grip, ever so slightly. Hill obviously saw that as an invitation to try and break free. Marianne let her, but dropped down to kick her legs out from under her. Hill hit the linoleum floor with a crack.

Ascertaining that Hill was too dazed to pose a threat, she dodged a lethal kick from Natasha, grabbing the woman’s leg and swinging her out of the only window in the apartment. She had been playing too nice, blinded by her insatiable curiosity.

As glass rained down all around her, Marianne grabbed her to-go bag and disappeared from the apartment, leaving the three agents behind. She half walked, half sprinted to the drop box twenty blocks from her apartment complex. The go bag had been an afterthought, after a particularly gnarly series of nightmares convinced her she wasn’t safe. She had never quite shaken the feeling, so the bag taped to the top of her kitchen cabinet stayed.

She left through the window, and Natasha still passed out on the concrete in front of her apartment. Marianne should have left her there, but, remembering she wasn’t the person she used to be, remembering Natasha tell her ‘you also did some good’, that good was the only thing that kept her from being kidnapped. It would be a disservice to past Marianne, the one who had clawed her way from the Potomac, to leave Natasha out in the cold on the pavement.

After gently rolling Natasha back into her now windowless apartment, Marianne wrapped her face in her scarf and made her way to a gas station in the suburbs.

Using a marked map, where she noted down any places or people she remembered, she found her way to a small, partially closed gas station on the outskirts of Washington DC. It was the early afternoon, but the street was deserted, and a sign across the door informed Marianne that the store was closed. The pumps were still working, but they were those self-service things that only needed occasional maintenance. A chain hung between the front door handle and one of the concrete posts holding up the roof above the gas pumps.

The side door, on the other hand, was unlocked, albeit rusty. It gave way after Marianne kicked the hinges hard enough to send the whole building rattling. The inside was dark and smelled of stale air and that sour undertone of vomit and piss.

Marianne ignored the ransacked shelves, instead making her way to the women’s restroom. The scent only got worse as she neared the washrooms, but Marianne was too focused to really care.

Inside the restroom, she counted out the tiles from the far left corner. Five to the right and three up, behind that tile lay a tiny metal box, covered in dust and cobwebs. Marianne shook the box, getting most of the debris off, before opening it gingerly, as if the contents might jump out at her if she didn’t keep an eye on it.

It wasn’t as well stocked as some of her drops downtown, but the location was good, close to Dulles, where she’d hopefully catch a flight, to where depended on the contents of the box, which she was slowly laying out around her on the grimy bathroom floor. The lockbox was small enough that there was only one identity, which meant that she’d have to stick with it, unlike larger drops where she had options.

The passport was red, which suggested EU. Upon closer inspection, she was proven right, as they were Austrian. Both the passport and personalausweis (identity card) were for Klara Meindl, permanent residency in Vienna. Klara was blonde, and while Marianne was too, usually, it meant she was going to have to get rid of the ginger dye she had been applying for the last couple of months. She was told it made her look less like a Hitlermadchen.

Every drop had some of the same things: hair dye, hair dye remover, liquid latex, makeup, a change of clothes, a file on the people in the identity papers, among others. Marianne gave her hair a quick, practiced trim before grabbing the hair dye remover, wetting her hair in the sink, and rubbing it in, grabbing the files as she waited for her hair to lighten.

Klara Meindl was a 26-year-old Austrian national, born and raised in Linz. She had travelled to America for university, graduating from Hollins University with a major in Education. She had taught German and French at one school, earning excellent recommendations from members of the faculty and former students.

This was better than what Marianne had hoped for; she could move to Vienna (a safe house there, Ottakring, Roseggergasse), recounting the directions as she made slight modifications to her face. Fuller cheeks, lower brows, a poutier mouth. It was still her, she hoped, but different enough to fool border security, if her photo was to be released.

She packed up the supplies and washed her hair in the sink. It’s still a little too orange, so she goes in with bleach and continues absorbing the file as she waits. Anxiety begins gnawing at her gut. Natasha may not have S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore (the name filled her with dread, though she wasn’t sure why), but the woman was capable, and she would not stop, that much was certain.

She didn’t know exactly when she decided on Vienna, but she knew the city, not just from the perspective of where the safe houses were. She knew it, felt the cobbles beneath her feet and the rumble of the U-Bahn as it flew through Stephansplatz.

Vienna was risky, going into Schengen and finding a job there made her easy to find, but if Natasha wanted to find her, she would, even if she hid in the Montana wilderness like some less-evil Unabomber (though the jury was still out on the ‘less evil’ part). Natasha would only stop when Marianne was in their custody, or the grave, so there was no point making life up until that point any more unpleasant than it had to be.

Vienna it was, teaching French to high schoolers and grading papers awaited her. She still had to get there, and paying in cash at the airport was an easy way to get put on a list.

Drops didn’t supply cards, only cash.

She had two options: use her Maisie Davis card or pay by cash. Of those choices, one would get her weird looks, the other would get her stopped. Her encounter with Hill and Natasha had left her with a black eye and plenty of scrapes; she was sure she could pull off an abused runaway if she had to.

The bleach had done its job; she was back to full Hitler Youth glory, but she knew that would be a lot less funny back (why had she thought back?) in Europe. She did her makeup, nothing too extreme, after all, she wasn’t wearing any in the passport photo, but just enough that it made it seem like she was trying her best to cover the damage to her face.

She packed up the documents into her backpack, transferring her clothes and other items to the duffel from the drop. Any documentation proving that Maisie Davis existed, joined her gun and ammo in a solid box with a fake bottom, the top filled with makeup and other toiletries. She needed more clothes and some food, for while she was getting her feet underneath her in Vienna.

She stopped by a local Wal-Mart, picking up cheap polyester long sleeves, shorts, pajamas (two sets, one long, one short), and pants. She hesitated around the short sleeves. Nobody had said anything about the scars flecking her skin in DC, but she doubted any school would want to hire a teacher covered in more scars than a fighting dog. She grabbed two short-sleeved tees; she could at least wear them around the house (if it was still there, please, still be there).

She also grabbed some canned food, peas, corn, and, most importantly, beans. On a whim, she grabbed the crackers the man at the pharmacy had bought; she hadn’t been lying, they were her favorite. What else? Trail mix and her favorite tea, which reminded her of home, wherever that was, but it wasn’t quite right, a snag in the fabric that was her identity (the fabric of her identity was a tattered quilt, too dirty to discern the original material, so any snags were a minor concern next to that).

The man at the counter gave her a strange look, as if she might jump out at him, though she supposed, working at the Wal-Mart, he had seen horrors she could only imagine. She paid almost 150 dollars, in cash, before shoving the things in her bag and sauntering out of the store like she wasn’t someone who was wanted by a semi-defunct security organization.

Once her duffel was sufficiently organized, any tags ripped from the clothes, she made her way to the airport, where she would have to pull off the most elaborate con of her recent (and only) memory. She schooled her face into passivity, with a hint of hurt and fear in her eyes, just enough to suggest, but not tell.

The check-in agent, a wonderful woman, Amy, twenty-three, unfortunately informed her that the next direct flight to Vienna left the following afternoon, leaving Marianne with twenty spare hours.

“I suggest you find a hotel for the night, ma’am,” She told her, after printing out Marianne’s boarding pass and checking her luggage. “I can uncheck your luggage, and you can come back in the morning.”

No. Marianne would not be doing that. Every second spent outside security put her at risk. She could take Natasha and Hill again if she needed to, but she didn’t fancy her chances if anyone else, a task force, joined the fray. Plus, what about the shadow from the studio, the man from the pharmacy who had allegedly been following her?

The number of people with whom she could potentially cross paths in the next twenty hours was concerningly large. She took a deep breath, making sure she shook slightly. “Are you sure I can’t go through security?”

“I mean, you can, but it’ll be much better for you to go home—”

“I can’t,” Marianne tried to put all the uncertainty of the last days into that word; her voice was a tad too high, but it did the trick. Amy saw the bruised eye, the single duffel, the crumpled bills. Marianne didn’t even need to say anything; Amy filled in the gaps for herself, without Marianne having to claim a single lie. “Thank you.”

She made her way to security, confident Amy would not report her to airport security, despite her concerning behavior. The hard part was done, for now, but that was a bridge she would have to cross when she came to it; there was no point worrying about things she couldn’t change. What Marianne really needed to do was find some slightly overpriced airport food, several energy drinks, and a nice place to crash before she boarded the plane.

Chapter Text

Marianne only began to relax when she was seated on the plane. Sure, she was flying into an EU/NATO country as someone wanted by S.H.I.E.L.D., but they didn’t exist anymore, and her disguise had held up, shockingly enough. Now she was Klara Meindl, headed for Vienna, and in nine hours, she would be able to start over. Even her metal knee passed through security undetected. She would find a job, on her own this time (mostly), and she would keep her head down, and nobody from before would find her again.

“Hello,” someone set their bag down next to her, but she was too busy examining the safety card to look up. “It’s nice to see you again.” That got her attention, and, of course, her seatmate for the next nine hours was the man from the pharmacy. She fought back that feeling of familiarity.

She hadn’t gotten a good look at him earlier; his cap had been pulled low, and his hair had been longer, but it was him. If not from the way he looked, then from the way he made her feel. The cold plunge, the snag, the beckoning of her past, it was all still there, and would torment her for the remainder of the flight. “Are you stalking me or something? Because I am the last person you’d want to stalk, and that’s when I haven’t had an extremely stressful set of days.”

“No. Well, getting on the same plane and sitting next to you was deliberate, yes.”

She cleared her throat, “So coming to my place of work for a week straight and only interacting with the staff when it’s me isn’t stalking?”

“Oh. Didn’t think you’d notice.”

“You’re lucky I recognize you.”

His eyes widened for a second, but he recovered well, “From the pharmacy?”

“No. From before.” He knew what that meant, he too, must have a before, a time he can’t remember, haunting him. “I assume you know me, too, so you stalked me.”

He smiled, tightly, like he had a hard time controlling his face, “I saw you once, on stage, in a ballet. I recognized you then, took me a while to find you.”

“Not long enough, evidently.” She smirked, hoping to keep some semblance of a guard up, “Since we’re headed to the same place, I presume, I should introduce myself. I’m Klara,”

“No, you’re not, that might be what your fake papers say, but it’s not your name.”

Shit, “What is my name then?”

“M-M—” he sounded the letter out, gesturing to her to complete the thought, “Maria?”

“Close enough, Marianne.”

“James, nice to meet you.” They shook hands, his, gloved, was concerningly cold. “So, what do you remember?”

She let her guard fall; it was on the outs already, “Not much, barely any feelings, the occasional blast from the past.” She shrugged, “You?”

“Feelings mostly, when I see people I remember, or I used to know, I’ll get a specific feeling.”

Marianne gestured to her bag, “I write down everything I remember in notebooks, but it’s all mostly childhood stuff, and you aren’t in any of it.”

“You remember images?”

“Remember might not be the right word, I dream my past, as if I’m watching a movie.” She kept her gaze fixed on her bag, making sure one leg was always touching it (not that that was hard in coach), “It always feels like it’s happening to someone else, but I know it’s me, even if it’s some old, different version of me.”

The plane had started to taxi while they had been speaking, the seat between them remained unoccupied, and the whole plane was suspiciously empty. James clenched his fists as the plane accelerated, and Marianne could see his life flash before his eyes as the plane lifted from the ground.

She found comfort in it, leaving that accursed city behind. She especially found comfort in the fact that someone who shared her experience had found her, and was willing to share (that was, of course, unless he was lying). Marianne knew she had to be careful, but, as had happened many times in her short remembered life, her curiosity got the best of her. “So, James, what do you remember?” Besides, she’d never tell him about those dreams, where she killed people, hurt them, sat in that chair.

“Swimming out of the Potomac, banged up pretty badly. I think my arms was broken. I was dragging this buff blonde guy out of the water, he looked pretty beat up. I left him on the shore, then just wandered around DC for a couple of days.” James fiddled with the armrest between him and the middle seat, “It’s all pretty murky, but there was other sets of prints in the mud on the shore, and a path through the underbrush that looked as if two people were dragging a third between them. No signs of struggle.”

Marianne sucked in a breath, he couldn’t be lying, could he? This was too close, “I must have come out before you, because the tracks weren’t there yet. I remember waking up on the side of the Potomac, freezing cold, feeling like someone had taken a baseball bat to me, my bones hurt—”

“And then?”

“And then—” She mirrored back, pausing. She couldn’t remember exactly what happened next, only stumbling onto Agnes’s front porch in the middle of the night. But, the night had been hotter than that day at the Potomac, and not just because she was dry. There was time, no telling how much, between the Potomac and Agnes, “Then I went to find Agnes,” She lied, “I didn’t know who she was but I knew she would help me.”

James considered what she said for a moment, “Huh,”

“You said you remember feelings when you see people you knew. What do you feel when you see me?”

He looked at her strangely, and she worried he had forgotten who she was. It had happened to her a few times, at work, in class, she completely blanked on who she was and what she was doing there. It sometimes took an embarrassing amount of time to remember. “I-I-I feel,”

“It’s okay if it’s painful, I’m sure there’s things in the past we’d both rather forget.” Like the gap between the Potomac and Agnes, she could feel it growing through her, blackening her insides and charring her organs.

“I feel pain, a lot of pain, but I also feel happiness, and contentment in a place I don’t really feel they belong.”

“Oh.”

“Oh indeed, I think I’ve shared enough, if you don’t mind. I’m going to sleep.” There was more, there had to be more; this was not the time to get cagey. She was being cagey, sure, she wasn’t telling him everything, but that’s because he couldn’t know what she’d done, even the fractions she remembered now.

Marianne nodded, still, she was disappointed; she had hoped to learn more, hoped this stranger would help clear the murkiness of her past. “Sweet dreams,” She whispered, following him into slumber, exhausted after her vigil in the airport.

Chapter Text

2014 - earlier

“The man on the bridge… Who was he?” The Soldier asked. Whatever the three from the bridge had done to him, it had damaged parts of his programming. Techs flitted around him as they tried to diagnose the problem.

The man, important in some way, stood over the Soldier, “You met him earlier this week on another assignment.” Pierce, that was his name. Pierce rubbed his fingers, it seemed that the slap had hurt him more than the Soldier.

“I knew him.” He might as well have damned them both half to hell.

Thankfully, Pierce ignored him, “Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century, and I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we're gonna give it a push. But, if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves.” Pierce whispered. The Soldier shot a look at the Asset, his programming was loose because the look on his face could be interpreted as pleading.

When he spoke, his voice was raw, “But I knew him.”

Pierce stiffened, he must have sensed the same thing as the Asset. “Prep him.”

“He’s been out of cryo freeze too long.” One of the techs mumbled. A shadow of fear passed over the Soldier’s face.

Pierce got up, a look of cruelty twisting his features. “Then wipe him and start over.” The Asset’s stomach dropped, she knew what that meant. She turned around, not needing to see what happened next. “No.” Pierce’s voice rang out like a bell. “Watch. And don’t make the same mistake he did.”

“I don’t make mistakes.” She ground out, but her body turned, no longer under her own power. She met Pierce’s gaze until a crack sounded and she was suddenly facing the ground.

“You have both done great work, but you have gotten too bold. Once you’re done with him, I need her cranked tighter, set her to five, we can’t have any more mistakes.”

The Asset tried to look away as they strapped the Soldier into the chair, trying to pry her eyes off him as they made eye contact while they forced the teeth guard into his mouth. She was ready to gouge her eyes out as the mask lowered and the screaming started, but her body wouldn’t listen.

“You must always listen to the handler, my dear daughter.” She knew that voice, whenever she tried to do something against her programming, that voice would haunt her into submission.

The screaming stopped, she knew it meant that the Soldier had drifted off into that blissful state of unconsciousness. It also meant it was her turn. The techs grabbed her by the shoulders, dragging her back into the chair. Her mind screamed out to her body to do something, but the command held her muscles limp, and she could only watch as the other Soldier stood from the chair, watching her impassively.

“Please…” She croaked at him, but he just looked away, his dirty face stony. His eyes, at least, had the decency to look down in shame as they shoved the leather bit into her mouth and clamped the machine down over her face. Little could be done now, especially as the armbands tightened around her biceps, holding her into place.

The pain lanced through her skull, sending her back to that place, back to oblivion But this time, she got nice memories, just voices, but better than bodies strewn around her and bones cracking between her fingers. Sunlight on her arms, and a warm mouth on hers, the only feelings she had left of those times.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I’ve never been more serious in my entire life.”

“Screw you, Barnes.”

“You wish,”

“Shut up, you two, I’ve got enough on my plate, I don’t need to watch this,”

“Jealous, Stevie?”

“Of what? Watching you fall over yourself for a girl. Where did the great womanizer go?”

*“*You were a womanizer?”

“Of course, it’s hard not to be with a face like this.”

“She’s not convinced, Buck,”

“No, no, she’s living evidence of it,”

“Oh yeah, because your face was so enchanting in that basement, I practically couldn’t stop myself from falling for you.”

“Hey, I was right there, cuffed down, you could have gone for it.”

“I had other things on my mind.”

“What, some pretty Italian boy catch your eye?”

“Maybe, or maybe you’re just not as pretty as you th—mmph,”

Chapter Text

Marianne awoke from the dream with a start, praying she hadn’t recited it out loud like she had the last one. James was still fast asleep, so if she had, it hadn’t woken him, small miracles, she supposed. They were about an hour out from Vienna. Marianne rubbed the sleep from her eyes, settling into her seat. In her mad dash from DC, she hadn’t thought to bring anything to distract herself on the plane, which meant her only alternative was to think about the dream she had just had.

It was the first time she had seen James in the flashbacks. There had sometimes been a man, tall, masked, with a metal arm, but she had never seen his face. Meeting him face to face must have triggered that specific memory. It felt recent, much more so than the memories of her father. It could have also just been a dream, a harmless figment of her imagination. She knew better.

Whatever that chair did, whatever Pierce and his techs did, it was the reason they couldn’t remember, the reason their past remained hidden. That machine wiped their memories and left their minds empty vessels for use. That hadn’t been the first time it had been used. Marianne felt the pain like a memory before she went in; she could feel James’ when he screamed. She knew passing out was the best part of that experience.

She knew how it left her mind empty, ready for the Asset.

James stirred, his eyes fluttering open, widening in fear before he realized where he was. His gaze darted over her, and he flinched back so hard it shook the entire row of seats. The seatbelt was the only thing that kept him from spilling over into the aisle. Marianne held her empty hands up, but he still eyed her with that ‘cornered animal’ expression.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You did…?”

She sighed, “Sorry?”

“In my dream, you stood above me, and you smacked me with a metal pipe. It was you, not the Asset.”

Marianne took a deep breath, “I’m not going to hurt you anymore, nobody will.”

“You said it should teach me my lesson.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“You can’t know that.”

Marianne huffed, slowly leaning forward to grab one of James’ forearms. He let her, but didn’t break eye contact. He was looking for any change in expression, the slip that meant the shift to the Asset. “That’s not me, it never was,” She reassures him. He lets his guard down, just a smidge, and she knows it’s not the end, because she can remember his face on her knuckles. There’ll be more. “I’d never do that. She would, I can’t,”

“And what if she comes back?” Potomac to Agnes, was she the Asset then? Could she turn into that version of herself on command?

“She won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“I won’t let her. I’ll throw myself off a building before I go back.” She smiled, but she wasn’t kidding; a fear had been mounting in her the past few days, as her past began creeping back. It wasn’t a fear of anything specific, like the chair or her father, but rather the fear of the possibility of what could happen if she went back. If the Asset came back.

“Deal.” He, too, wasn’t kidding, “What are you planning on doing once we get to Vienna?” Smooth, she’d give him that.

“Well, Klara Meindl is a teacher, so I figured I’d try to do that.” There was no telling how the papers would hold up once they got to Vienna, but she had other prospects, need be. “You?”

“Security, people always need buff guys to look intimidating.”

Marianne nodded, “Ah, so you’re all bark, no bite.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” His smile turned into a snarl. “But I doubt it’ll ever come to that, I’ll probably just carry out drunk people every once in a while.”

“Who are you, I mean, who do your papers say you are?”

He responded almost robotically, “Hans Junghoff, aus Berlin.”

They found their way to the safehouse quite easily, like they had a compass embedded in their mind, which, for all they knew, they did. It was a relatively large (3 bedroom, 2 bathroom) apartment in the middle floors of a building overlooking the green by Roseggergasse. “We need to make sure this place isn’t on Airbnb.” James looked around the place. Marianne could see what he was doing: checking exits, cataloguing the windows, sweeping the roofs. “If my suspicions are correct, the people we worked for aren’t exactly doing well, and we need to make sure a bunch of tourists don’t show up while we’re living here.”

“We should do a proper sweep too, wait, what is Airbnb? And why would it mean tourists would come here?”

“Have you been living under a rock?”

“I mean—”

“Stupid question. It’s one of those app things that lets people rent out their apartments as hotels.” He gestured around, “And this seems like a place people would do that to.”

“Yeah, except for the weapons in the closet and strategic gear in the drawers.” She sighed, “But you’re right, we should still check.”

James pulled out his phone, a flip phone, and started pressing buttons seemingly at random, muttering to himself as he tried to find the Airbnb app on his Motorola.

“Hate to break it to you, but I don’t think you can get the Airbnb app on one of those.”

He flipped the phone closed, like in one of those movies they showed on TV sometimes. “How am I meant to get it then?”

“Do I look like I know? I didn’t know what it was until five minutes ago.” She fished her (touchscreen) phone from her bag. “Where do I get apps?”

“Do they not come pre-downloaded?”

“Huh?”

“Jesus, look at us, top-class assassins, can’t even download a stupid app.” He held out a gloved hand, and Marianne relinquished her phone. “Now, let me try.”

“Cut me some slack, I’m probably, like, a hundred years old.”

“How do you know that?” James eyed her suspiciously, like he knew she was keeping something from him.

She shrugged, “My dreams, and Google. The man my father talked to, Erskine, left Germany in ‘29, which means I would have met him earlier. The oldest I remember being when I met him was 11, which means I was born in 1918, probably earlier.”

“Sick. I had to look myself up in a museum. I’m 97.”

“Nice, any luck?” He had tapped away at her phone furiously, soon realizing that his left hand, the metal one, wouldn’t work on the touchscreen.

“Yeah, looks like we’re in the clear, but there is one below us, and next to us.”

“Great, I have no doubt we’ll sleep well.” He gave her the phone back. “Wait, museum?”

He avoided eye contact. “Yeah, the exhibit about Captain America in the Smithsonian. I was like his best friend, his sidekick if you will.”

“Oh.”

“You weren’t there.” He sighed; he might even be feeling sorry he couldn’t offer her more information.

Marianne cleared her throat, “Yeah, I wasn’t exactly on the right side of that conflict. Not by choice—” She added hurriedly as she saw the horrified look on James’ face, “My father, who turned me into the Asset, was Johann Schmidt; his Wikipedia profile is considerably less pleasant.”

“Shit.” He sank down onto the mauve living room couch, the sunlight catching in the hair escaping from his ponytail, “Talk about daddy issues.”

“Marianne Schmidt.” That was the first time she’d said it out loud, it was not familiar, not the way Mari or the Asset were, “What about you? Your museum exhibit tell you your full name?”

“James Buchanan Barnes, nice to meet you, Marianne Schmidt.” Barnes? Like Barnes from the voices? Couldn’t be.

She just nodded, shaking his outstretched hand. The silence that fell, the realization that they were free, at least for now, became crushing. “I’m going to take a walk.” Marianne grabbed her coat and let the door swing closed behind her. There had been something in his gaze when she told him about her father, something she couldn’t read.

She walked through Vienna, letting her legs lead her; there were drops here too, but she didn’t need them, not now. The crisp January air cleared her head as she watched people slowly make their way to lunch. She couldn’t run from her past forever, but she had to, for now, until she learned what she was fighting, until she learned who her allies were. James didn’t trust her, couldn’t trust her, and she couldn’t blame him; she didn’t trust him either, not when either of them could turn, could send them both back into the darkness.

“How was your walk?” James asked when she came back, hours later, her jacket piled high with snow.

She smiled, “Good, it helped take my mind off things.” He had been cooking, or at least had tried to, considering the state of the kitchen. “What’d ya make?”

“Chicken parm. Pretty good, the state of the kitchen does not reflect the quality of my cooking. Europeans just make weird kitchens.” He opened the oven and pulled out a plate. “Saved you some.”

It was pretty good. Marianne had never developed a taste for fine dining, and most of her meals back in DC were either home-cooked or from the Ukrainian restaurant across the street, just homely enough. She let him deal with the kitchen, occasionally making sure he wasn’t completely Americanizing a perfectly acceptable kitchen (whatever that even meant). “I’m going to go down to the unemployment office tomorrow, see if I can get a job.”

“Might be tough getting a teaching job in January.”

“Maybe, but it’ll give me something to do.” She scraped the final remnants of sauce from her plate before bringing it into the kitchen. He offered to take it from her, “No, no, I’ll wash it, you make sure the kitchen isn’t a fire hazard.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The sink in the kitchen had a window in front of it, probably so agents wouldn’t be caught unawares while they were washing up. Marianne wasn’t an agent anymore, but she still looked, men and women returning home from work, children running home from school. It sent an ache through her, a familiarity for a life she’d never lived, a life she probably wouldn’t get to live.

James noticed her staring, “It isn’t fair, but we’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got. Or else we’re wasting the life we do have.”

“Did you see that on a propaganda poster or something?”

“No, just seemed appropriate.”

“I’m kidding.” She smiled to herself, pretending she didn’t dread the night, the darkness, and the memories. What if she remembered something she’d wished to keep hidden? Would she be able to look anyone in the eye? That was the worst part about her past, not the bad things she knew about, but the bad things that had to be lurking beneath the surface, because with every thing she learned, she still felt as if it was ‘one of the better times’. She balked at the prospect of remembering one of the bad ones.

She had skeletons in her closet; she wouldn’t deny that, but there was a difference between one skeleton and fifty, a hundred, a thousand. What had she done? Not the Asset, but Marianne Schmidt, even her name seemed bitter, a mockery; she couldn’t hide where she came from. Her past would always haunt her, no matter how much she learned and how many times she forgave herself.

Maybe some people were just cursed from the start.

Chapter Text

A little over a week after Marianne had brought her resume down to the labor office, she got a call. A school by Westbahnhof desperately (or so they claimed) needed a French teacher, they had liked her references, and wanted to call her in for an interview.

“That was suspiciously easy,” She told James as she got ready for the interview. He didn’t look up from his phone. She had made him get a more modern touch-screen one; neither one of them dared get one of those that opened with a fingerprint just yet.

Marianne ignored him; she wasn’t the one who could just walk into one of those shady security firms and he hired on the spot by the grace of her imposing presence. She had gone shopping, again, this time getting some ‘smart teacher looks’ rather than ‘teenager with no style’. The outfit she had chosen today, white blouse and knee-length skirt, felt much more familiar than the crop tops and sweatpants. “What is the worst this can go?” She asked.

“Why would you want to know that?” James was sprawled out on the couch, reading a book. His shirt started at eight, so it was a miracle he was even up by noon.

Marianne sighed. Why couldn’t this man ever just humor her? “So I know what to prepare for, duh.”

James placed the book onto his chest, carefully considering. “They figure out your past, hand you over to INTERPOL, and you get locked up on the Raft, never to be seen again.”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t have asked.”

He gets up, carefully leaving the book open to the page he was on. He grabbed her by the shoulders, smoothing down her blazer. “You’ll be fine, you have that old-timey elegance they’ll love.”

“I doubt they’ll love my specific old-timey-ness.” In fact, she was pretty sure they’d really, really hate the kind of vintage she brought to the table.

“Yeah, well, maybe don’t mention the fact that you were a Nazi—” He starts, but he’s joking, at least she hopes he is.

“Not by choice—” She interrupts him, but he continues.

“—or the fact that you escaped from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Could we maybe stop mentioning the fact that I’m practically a war criminal? It’s a miracle they didn’t put me on trial during Nuremberg.”

“Nuremberg?”

“What have you been doing the last couple of months?” She laughs, and some of the tension from her back is gone. “I’ve been compulsively researching anything that I see.”

He looks out of the window, pain clouding his gaze, “I’ve been trying to lay low. Plus, I haven’t really been remembering names like you have.”

“I suppose, thanks for the mood lift, I guess.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The interview went shockingly well, but she suspected it was only the principal’s desperation (the last French teacher had disappeared without so much as a goodbye) that led him to offer her the job on the spot. Noticing her sensitivity to the Russian quips thrown around by his secretary (real unsavory stuff), he also asked her to act as the substitute for the Russian teacher, who could only work part-time for some reason.

All in all, the job had more red flags than Moscow on May Day, circa 1970, but Marianne didn’t really care. They needed the money (even the little she was offered, or the slightly more she had managed to haggle), and she needed something to do with her time.

Now she just needed to keep her cover in front of the prying eyes of teenagers. She also needed to keep her cool in front of the most hormone-crazed people on the planet, goddamn the identity drop.

Marianne and James celebrated her newfound employment in the garishly decorated French restaurant a couple of blocks from their apartment (theirs, because they had disabled all of the surveillance, hiding the weapons and suits). Marianne knew it was less about her job and more about the fact that the both of them should really get out more.

They still weren’t free, eyes darting to the door whenever anyone entered, wary of their food. Marianne didn’t much care for the food; it might as well have been sawdust in her mouth, but she played along, smiled at James’s attempts at jokes, let him talk and talk and talk. He needed that; he’d been quiet the past couple of days.

She wanted to enjoy the evening, she really did, but something had been nagging her. “Do you think we can really start over? Like this? As if nothing had ever happened?” Way to ruin the mood.

His face dropped, and his chewing slowed, “I don’t know,” he whispered, “and neither will you if we don’t try.” Marianne nodded, not daring to speak, because god forbid she drop another bomb that ruins the evening for both of them. He reached across the table, wrapping his fingers around her hand, where it had lain limp for the better part of the evening. It took all of her effort not to shirk away from the touch.

“Okay,”

“Hey, if I know anything, it’s that we survived a lot. It’s a miracle we’re even here, free as birds.” James rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. Still, Marianne could not shake the gloom, “And you have a job now, a demanding job, it’ll take your mind off of all this.”

That was why she worried; what if the episodes started again, sure, there weren’t many things out there left to trigger them, now that James was here, and she had become acclimatized to that cold she felt whenever she looked at him. “Sorry, I’m being a real downer today. No clue what’s gotten into me.”

“I think it’s called ‘just being human’,”

The rest of the evening was nice, albeit slightly more muted. Marianne could get used to this; she could lose herself in the escape Vienna offered, nothing to remind her that her past was always lurking, waiting to strike.

Chapter Text

The monotony that fell over them was nice; the weeks ticked by without incident, small drabbles of memory returning as time went on. Marianne worked during the day, James worked the nights, so they didn’t see much of each other, though the evidence of their cohabitation was everywhere.

Marianne would cook an extra omelet in the morning, make an extra sandwich, leave some spaghetti in the pot for James. He’d make dinner before he left for work, they’d see each other for maybe an hour each day, after Marianne came home, and before James left for his own work. He’d thank her for the breakfast, she’d thank him for the dinner. Civil. Measured. Nothing outside of the ordinary.

Evenings were filled with graded papers, preparing tests, and organizing her teaching materials. Marianne wasn’t a particularly adept teacher, but her students liked her, and she was seeing some progress with them. The school leadership was as much of a shitshow as the interview had promised, but Marianne kept her head down, spent her lunch breaks in the classroom, her door always open to students who wanted to have some quiet time during school hours.

The other staff were interesting, a mishmash of Austrian and foreign, their teaching methods wildly different. She hadn’t made any friends, the wounds Maude had inflicted on her during their last meeting were still fresh, and she wasn’t ready to risk getting more. She had made an enemy, though, that seemed to be the one constant wherever she went. Guy Madden, thirty, unmarried, American, lived in a one-bedroom apartment just outside the city center. Guy thought he was God’s gift to womankind, and Marianne was his most recent victim. The rest of the female staff told her to wait it out, that he’d get bored eventually, and move on. Eventually wasn’t coming soon enough, and James had to endure tirade upon tirade on his behavior.

“Why don’t you just… make him disappear, or I can do it,” he offered, “but I feel it’d give you more satisfaction.”

Marianne had bit back a chortle, “All the evidence would point straight to me. Can’t say I haven’t thought about it.”

“What evidence? You’re better than that.” They joked, like this, about their past, but the undertone was always heavy, and the jokes were never that funny.

All in all, Vienna could have gone worse for Marianne. Her nightmares had calmed down, which meant she was getting better sleep, but it also meant her past remained stubbornly cloudy. But she’d rather have this calm than know what she had done. Life was good, there was no reason to poke the bear, even if that bear was her own past.

The first cracks came in April, when Marianne was asked to attend an Easter Gala organized by the parents’ association at her school. She had had to ask James to attend too, because ‘the American’, as they called him at the school, had made some unsavory remarks about his intentions. James had accepted, even if it was just to see who was making his roommate so angry.

“So, what am I?” He asked, buttoning his jacket up, as Marianne finished the final stages of her makeup, making sure her hair was in place, “Brother, boyfriend, husband, friend?”

“Boyfriend. Friend is too casual, and we don’t have the same surname, for the other two.” She didn’t care; she could shove this away, it was just another mission, but this time the objective was much simpler: survive, preferably with her dignity intact. She could ignore the mounting feeling in her chest, that reemergence of emotion, despite how dashing he looked in that suit, with his hair short. Especially because of that.

She ignored the way he smiled at himself as he brushed his hair back in the mirror. “What’s our story, then?” Without waiting for a reply, he added, “Is this too 1940s?”

“Your hair is fine. We met in the US, while I was studying at Hollins and you were doing that backpacking thing.” They had read each other’s files, fitting together their stories. Reinforcing the lie that their lives were built on.

He put the brush down. “What’s your name again?”

“Klara Meindl. You’re Hans Junghoff.”

“Aus Berlin.” He smiled, and she could see the mask slip on. He never smiled that widely when it was just them. He’d never offer her his hand, even though they were in the sanctity of their own home.

On the way over, Marianne briefed James, “He’ll talk in English, because he knows it makes a lot of us insecure. Though if he really wanted to disturb us, he’d speak in German.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Oh, you have no idea.” She looped her arm through his as they neared the venue, “He’ll try to make you feel like an idiot. Ignore him. Don’t let him get under your skin. If he pisses you off too much, punch him, I’ll cover for you.”

“Metal arm or regular?” He asked, “Actually, trick question, because I’m not punching him, I’m snapping his neck, and I need both arms for that.” He sounded serious, deadly serious, to the point it worried Marianne.

“No. I’m not leaving here because of that asshole.” Marianne shot him a look that she hoped translated to: I mean it this time. “And he isn’t even worth the guilt.” He nodded, though she could tell it was bothering him.

The parents’ association was mostly just rich yuppies who didn’t have anything better to do with their time, so the venue was opulent, decorated in a 1920s speakeasy style. The familiarity helped put Marianne at ease, just a little. There were more people there than she would have expected, but it seemed every parent, whether they were a part of the association or not, had carved out time to come to this.

“What if someone recognizes us?” James asked, shit, she hadn’t thought of that. Nobody knew what she looked like; most people didn’t even know the Red Skull had a daughter, but James had been the sidekick of Captain America.

Marianne forced a smile, “Deny, deny, deny.” She hoped his change of hair and the fact that he was meant to be dead would help them. “Worst case, you’re the result of James Barnes’ conquests while he was in Europe. You can say you’re your own grandfather.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“You have a better idea?” She nudged him gently in the side, “Don’t worry, nobody will notice.” James didn’t seem convinced, but it was too late now.

Nobody noticed, or if they did, they kept it to themselves. Marianne and James slowly made the rounds through the throngs of parents and teachers, smiling, laughing at jokes, and making concerned faces when appropriate. Marianne was starting to enjoy herself, sure, she was lying through her teeth and keeping one eye over her shoulder, but it was nice, even if she wasn’t really a social animal.

Surprisingly, it took Guy thirty minutes to muster up the courage to come up to her. He might have just spent that time sizing them up, ascertaining his best plan of attack. Or maybe he didn’t really care that much, and Marianne was letting all of this get to her too much. “Lara, hey, Lara!” Marianne felt James’ arm stiffen where she held onto it.

“Ignore him, at least until he calls me by the right name.” James nodded, a muscle in his jaw flickering as he kept his eyes trained forward. “You don’t need to say anything if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t worry, okay?”

Guy was right behind them now, putting one of his palms on Marianne’s bare shoulder, forcing her to turn around and face him. The touch sent a wave of disgust through her, and poor James was whipped around because Marianne would not let go of him. “Are you deaf, Lara?”

“Klara.” Marianne bit out, trying her best at a neutral expression that didn’t reek of the Asset. “We were in the middle of a conversation, if you don’t mind.”

Guy scoffed, “Yeah, but I needed to talk to you.” He turned to James, “Could you give us a minute?”

“No. Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of him.” James nodded, Guy rolled his eyes.

“What is he, your bodyguard?”

“Hans, her boyfriend,” Marianne had angled them in such a way that the hand James held out to Guy was his human one. “And you are…?”

“Guy, Guy Madden, her best work friend.” It took all of Marianne’s energy not to roll her eyes right out of her head. “Hold on, dude, are you American?” Unfortunately, James couldn’t seem to shake that American jauntiness to his voice, and he had told her that he was not, under any circumstances, doing his riff on a German accent. His justification? ‘I’ll just sound like a dollar store Zola, and nobody wants that’.

James sighed, “No. I’m German. I went to CUNY in New York, though.”

“Cool, cool.” Guy didn’t care, but Marianne was just glad he was distracted, albeit temporarily. “That where you met Lara?”

“Klara,”

“Chill out, it’s a nickname, friends give each other nicknames.”

“You are not my friend.” Marianne deadpanned, “What is it you wanted?”

Guy paced nervously. James might not have been German, but he had mastered the death stare beautifully. “Just to talk to my friend— coworker— about work stuff.”

“Can’t you talk to me… at work?”

“Yeah, but work is too formal, you know? Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you or your ‘scary’ German ‘boyfriend’ where your grandparents were ‘39 to ‘45. I just feel like work isn’t the right place to talk about it.”

“You said you wanted to talk about work stuff.” Marianne leaned her head onto James’ shoulder; he, playing along, wrapped an arm around her waist. Guy watched them with thinly veiled disgust.

Guy sighed, “Whatever, forget it.” He brought up his finger, waving it around, “You know what? You could do with being a little nicer.”

“I’m perfectly polite.”

He pointed his finger at James’ face, “And you, don’t scare me, so, nice try.” Marianne hoped he’d bite Guy’s finger off. James remained perfectly still, his face impassive, despite the dirty fingernail centimeters from his nose. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Not if I see you first.”

James rolled his eyes at Guy’s retreating back, “Well, isn’t he a delight?”

“One day he’ll piss me off so much I’ll tell him what I was doing ‘39 to ‘45, the prick. Typical American, no offense, has no respect for the fact that we’re trying to move past our history.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t have all that much to be proud of, either.” James grabbed her hand, pulling them into one of the shadier alcoves of the hall. His grip was crushing. Marianne tried to wrench her hand free, or at least lessen the pressure. James shook his head, as if the words wouldn’t come.

Marianne whimpered in pain, her knuckles were being squeezed dangerously close, “That hurts—” She bit off, before she saw the look on James’ face.

“I just need a second where nobody is watching me.” His face had gone sallow, and his breaths were coming up shorter and shorter. Marianne looped her arm under him, helping him stay upright.

“You okay there?” But he was staring off, too out of it to answer. Marianne recognized the expression; it was the one she got whenever she was having a moment. “Shit. Let’s sit you down.” She lowered him onto the ground, slowly, pulling the gauzy curtains across the alcove, shielding them from view. “I’m going to get you some water, don’t go anywhere.”

Marianne had to get out of there; she didn’t believe the affliction was catching, but the look on James’ face twisted her heart and sent pangs through her own stomach. It hadn’t happened in a while; the last one in broad daylight had been the one in the pharmacy, the day they had met, allegedly, for the first time.

She wandered through the venue aimlessly, the yellow light from the candles flickering, people slowly pressing around her, she reached the center of the room. Time slipped from her; she found herself leaning on a high table, the woman across from her sipping champagne and trying her best to ignore Marianne as she slouched forward. Trying her best to remain nonchalant, she pushed off and continued making her rounds around the room.

She didn’t even notice Guy until James was back at her side, pulling her close. “Are you alright? I’m sorry I left you like that.” She mumbled against his chest. She had meant to get him some water, but she hadn’t expected him to be back on his feet so early.

“It’s okay, just close your eyes, I’ve got an idea.” Noticing her worried look, he added, “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back—” and a strangled sound in the back of his throat that might have been an ‘always’. Marianne had trusted him not to murder her in her sleep for three months; what was a couple more seconds? She let her eyelids flutter closed, sensing James’ presence come closer.

His breath was on her lips, and his body stilled. “Can I?” He whispered, the words sending flickers over Marianne’s face. Heat spread through her face and down her body, sending the world on a gentle tilt.

Marianne took a deep breath and choked out a “Go ahead.” And his lips were on hers in an instant, gentle, his hand coming up to cradle her face. Marianne slowly raked her hand across his back, and she heard rather than felt his breath hitch.

“You’re itching for a fight,” He mumbled against her lips. She was. Usually, she’d go for a run, let the miles wipe away any desire to punch someone’s lights out. If she was in a particularly foul mood, she’d run down the deserted alleys, waiting for the poor soul who would yell at her. She told James it was to keep the muscles around her knee strong, not like he believed her anyway.

She pushed back, worried he would stop, but he let her. She chose to ignore the slick feeling in her stomach or how both of their hearts had sped up the moment their lips had touched. The kiss was nice, almost familiar, but that was all it was, a kiss, a performance for a crowd who would forget in a couple of minutes anyway.

Marianne pulled away, not that it wasn’t pleasant, sure, it ignited a fire in her she’d never thought she’d see, but enough was enough. James swayed forward slightly before opening his own eyes. She stilled under his gaze, his pupils dilated almost past the iris, his cheeks flushed. He let the hand he’d placed on her cheek fall, agonizingly slow. “You think that was convincing?” His voice was a little hoarse, “I mean, yeah, that’s something we definitely do all the time.”

“Shut up,” She couldn’t meet his gaze. “Thanks, though.” Guy was nowhere to be found, but if rumors were to be believed, he wouldn’t stop, but he’d slow down.

“Should we go? It’s getting hot in here.”

Chapter Text

The second break, and the ensuing shatter, came in May, after the flowers had bloomed and the first hot days of summer had passed. They had been distant since that night; they didn’t talk about any of it, not the kiss, not what James saw. Marianne knew he would tell her when he saw fit, but all she wanted to do was help him, but there was only so much she could do.

She hadn’t had an episode herself since they had left DC. The dreams were vague, and all she would get was a sinking familiarity when someone she should have known walked by. It was worse at work; the noisy chaos of the school halls sent her hands shaking and her eyes darting. Some of the students were hauntingly familiar, and the ache wouldn’t go away, no matter how much she reminded herself that the past was the past, and that she didn’t lead that kind of life anymore.

She was still remembering, just not large chunks at once, rather vignettes of a life not lived, of a life barely survived. She remembered the early days, mostly, Russia and Berlin. Those days before the war had started, and she’d spent time with her family. They were peaceful, mostly, never anything too upsetting.

It was a Wednesday, the only day Marianne had all of her lesson slots full. Double period French with the sophomores in the morning, then Russian with the seniors and French with the freshmen back-to-back. Duty over lunch, and then more French to finish off the day. Every Wednesday left her spent, like a sponge that had been squeezed so hard it started to fray and fall apart.

She’d come home and lie on the couch for at least half an hour before she even tried to do anything. James would leave her alone, anxious not to repeat the incident which ended with a student’s workbook lobbed at his head, which he dodged (thankfully), and an awkward weekend during which Marianne made the strategic choice to spend it with her coworkers in the mountains. After apologizing and reassuring James that the look he had seen in her eyes had been exhaustion, life went back to normal (or whatever normal had become for them).

Another reason why she hated Wednesdays was because she had her least favorite class, the French sophomores. Maybe it was the age, maybe this specific class just sucked, but whatever it was, they made her life hell for four periods a week. And two of them were at 8 am on a Wednesday.

She could brew herself two cups of coffee, stop by her favorite bakery on her way to the school, but it wouldn’t help. By the end of the second period, her nerves were frayed, and her Russian seniors were asking her if she had slept at all. Marianne had never gone to school, and if she had, it would have been in a much different era, but she knew that she would have hated all of her students in that class, were she in school with them. Sure, there were the suck-ups who at least didn’t make her want to rip her hair out, but they weren’t all that pleasant to be around either.

Still, she tried her best, getting eyerolls and half-completed worksheets in return. Her reminders fell on deaf ears, and she had had to dodge spitballs on numerous occasions (spitballs which would have hit anyone with a regular reaction time in the face, but she couldn’t turn the reactions off). What made her the angriest was the way they’d treat each other; some of the things they said shocked even her, and she’d grown up in 1930s Germany.

All of this to say, she hesitated to leave them unattended with only a TA, who had no idea what she was walking into, but the headmaster said it was urgent, so she had to.

The alarm sounded while she passed the science department, and it wasn’t the fire alarm, with its whoops and sirens, no, it was the alarm designed to knock people to the ground. It was the alarm nobody ever wanted to hear. She had just passed the last part of the school with classrooms, the next section of hallway was just supply closets containing dangerous chemicals, which were kept locked at all times.

She turned, just in time to hear the row of classrooms behind her lock.

Shit.

No gunshots yet, which either meant the person came with a knife or hadn’t stumbled onto a suitable target yet. Marianne hoped it was the latter, though a knife improved her own chances of survival exponentially.

She could take trained assassins, mercenaries, even, but this, this was something new. She’d always fought people in a better mental state than herself. She herself never brought her gun to school, and while that left her feeling exposed, she also didn’t want one of the twats getting into her things, and pulling out a loaded .22. She had her knife (well, several knives), but if this person had an assault rifle (which was less likely, but still very much possible), she didn’t stand a chance.

She texted James, telling him she ‘might need backup’, but what she really needed was someone who could identify the body. He didn’t respond, probably because he was still asleep, and, being from the 30s and 40s, didn’t check his phone all that often.

Her position in the science hallway was too exposed, and she could hear footsteps coming nearer, barely discernible over the wail of the siren. The siren was as much to incapacitate the intruder as it was to warn the people inside the building, and Marianne, with her enhanced hearing, could barely pay attention to the hallway in front of her.

Science transformed to the humanities, where someone had once decided to erect Grecian columns in the hall; they looked garish and provided impossible roadblocks for masses of students, but they gave her a place to hide. She dove behind the third one in the row, just as she saw a reflection, one corner away.

Marianne could have tried to outrun him, might have managed, but she didn’t know the type of damage he’d inflict when the police tried to catch him, or the type of damage he’d inflict before they even managed to get there. It would have been selfish of her not to use her skills to try and neutralize him before anything bad happened.

“Schmidt, I know you’re here somewhere,” A male, relatively young. Marianne’s blood froze in her veins. Schmidt was a relatively common surname in this part of Europe, but she had no doubt he meant her. “Come out, you little backstabbing bitch.” He had rounded the second corner and was now in the same hallway as Marianne.

She tried to still her breathing, to focus on the sound of his footsteps over the wailing alarm. He was two columns away. He darted to the other side, clearing the corridor. He was back on Marianne’s side, behind the column adjacent to her own. He moved to the opposite column, and had he looked back, he would have seen Marianne there, crouching, but he was too occupied with clearing the column with faux-military efficiency.

It took Marianne a split second to assess the situation; to her dismay, the man had an assault rifle, something AR-15 adjacent, which he was sweeping in broad, clumsy strokes. Using the fact that his back was turned to her, Marianne leaped from her hiding spot, landing on the shooter’s back. He swung around wildly, firing the gun into the columns. He couldn’t reach her where she was on his back, so he let go of the gun with one arm to get a better angle.

Marianne grabbed the hot barrel and wrestled the gun from the shooter’s grip. She released the magazine, kicking it down the corridor, and smacked the shooter with the now-empty gun. He watched in dismay as she flung the rifle down the opposite end of the corridor, before kicking him in the chest with so much force that it cracked the column he crashed into.

A glint of a knife, before he tried jabbing it into her stomach. He must have been wearing some pretty high-end back protection, because he had managed to get up onto his feet faster than Marianne was expecting. She dodged his jab, twisting his arm around his back, kicking him in the back of the knees. He screamed as his arm reached that critical angle, his mask slipped, and Marianne faltered. It was a student, one of her students. A junior, his French was terrible, but she’d never thought of him as a school-shooter type.

“The hell are you doing, Johann?” She yelled as he twisted around, a knife in his other hand. He slashed at her face, narrowly missing her throat. She had released him as she dodged, and he rolled his shoulders as he stared her down.

Johann smirked, not deterred by Marianne’s previous attempts to neutralize him. “Getting revenge. You double-crossed my father.” Johann had been one of the students who sent jolts of familiarity through her, but she did not remember double-crossing him or his father. “He recognized you at the gala. You’d think someone like you would be more careful.” And he lunged, the knife back in his dominant hand.

Marianne dodged his strikes quite easily. He was angry and full of adrenaline, but none of that hid the fact that he was a shabby fighter. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.” She said in between parries, “My name is Meindl, not Schmidt.”

“You don’t need to lie, I’ve deactivated the sound on the cameras.” He spun, mimicking a move he had probably seen in a crappy action movie, and Marianne used that opportunity to slide into his reach, dropping down and kicking his legs from under him. Johann hit the ground with a thud, and Marianne was on him in an instant, grabbing his right arm and twisting it all the way around, until something snapped and he dropped the knife. He thrashed, screaming obscenities, but he was no match against Marianne.

He switched to begging instead, “Please, you have to let me go. My father’ll kill me.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t have sent you on this mission, considering he knows what I’m capable of.”

“He didn’t,” Johann cried, “I just heard him talk about how you betrayed him, and so I decided to go after you. I figured you were one of his ex-girlfriends or something.”

Marianne grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face into the carpeted floor until she heard the nose snap, and blood pooled under Johann’s face. “You’re sick. And damn lucky I’m not her anymore, or you’d be dead right now.”

Johann, scrounging together his meagre brain cells, shut up, whimpering occasionally. The police arrived not long after, pulling Marianne off of Johann and leading both of them out in handcuffs. Marianne stumbled along as the police officer pushed her gently, all of her strength sapped.

The warm outside air hit Marianne’s face like a flurry of punches. The school was surrounded by police cars, their lights flashing. Johann was led away, into the back of one of the cars. His face was covered in blood and sporting a bruised-ego expression. The cop who had escorted Marianne was gone, leaving Marianne shivering on the plaza outside the school, her hands still cuffed. Marianne shifted uncomfortably; she hated the feeling of being bound. They were regular police cuffs; she could have them off in thirty seconds, maybe a minute (she was pretty out of practice), but she didn’t need to incriminate herself any more than she had.

“Mari—Klara! Klara! Where are you?” James, pushing past the police officers who tried to stop him, “I got your text, are you okay?” Blood spattered the front of her pants where it had sprayed while she was breaking Johann’s nose, and gathered at her knees where she had knelt in it.

“Not mine,” she clarified, “And I think you’d better get behind the barrier.” Several officers were approaching them, but James clamped a hand on her shoulder.

The taller officer sighed, “Sir, you have to leave. This is a crime scene.”

“Okay, but she’s coming with me.”

“No.”

“At least uncuff her, then.”

“Not until we review the CCTV footage.” One of their walkie-talkies crackled, and they hurriedly shifted away, not far enough, though. Marianne could still hear the broken German. Seventy years and humanity still hadn’t invented comms that didn’t suck. “Fine, we’ll uncuff you, but you still need to come down to the police for questioning. Do you have your identification card?”

“No.” She rubbed her wrists, considerably more comfortable now that she could move freely again.

“Where is it?”

“Classroom 1134A, in my backpack.” The junior officer left, hurriedly barking orders into her walkie-talkie.

“Your name, ma’am,”

“Klara Meindl.” The officer had pulled out a notepad and started scribbling with that self-important expression of someone who felt they had unlimited power over someone else.

“What was your reason for being in the school today?”

“I’m a teacher, I teach here,” She added, noticing Klaus was going to ask a snarky follow-up.

“And you, sir?”

“Hans Junghoff. I don’t work here.”

“Why are you here then?”

“Klara sent me a message. She’s my girlfriend.” He wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Fine. Ms. Meindl, you have to come with us,” And they led her off into an awaiting police cruiser.

The questioning at the station was largely the same as at the scene, but done by a much scarier-looking woman. Marianne straight out lied when asked if Johann had said anything, and luckily for her, the school CCTV system was too grainy for them to make out any of his words that way.

“He just called me a bitch and similar stuff.” The interrogator was sloppy by that point, and Marianne could practically feel the boredom roiling from the room behind the one-way mirror.

“Okay, Ms. Meindl, you can leave. The school is closed for the following week. You’ll be happy to know that nobody was hurt, no doubt thanks to your efforts. Where did you learn such moves?” Marianne wasn’t dumb; she knew the interrogation wasn’t over yet.

“My boyfriend works in security and used to be a wrestler in college.” She shrugged, “He taught me some moves, thought it would be good for me to be able to defend myself.”

“Well, he’s an excellent teacher,” The interrogator held the door open, handing Marianne her release information. “He’s waiting for you in the lobby.”

James looked up from a magazine as Marianne made her way toward him. The corners of his mouth quirked up, but his expression quickly dropped when he saw her gloomy expression. “What’s wrong?” Other than the obvious.

“I have to leave. I’ve been made.” She dragged him out of the police station. Once they were a safe distance away, she explained the incident, what Johann had said. “His father knows, and it's only a matter of time before he acts on it. I’m quitting — I’m sure they’ll understand why — and leaving.”

“Fine, where are we going?”

“We? You can stay here if you’d like. I know you’ve really found your stride here, and I won’t take that away from you.”

“Okay, but, counterargument, I want to go with you. We still have so much we need to learn from each other.” He pulled her into a warm embrace. Marianne had left her jacket at the school and hadn’t realized how cold the evening was outside. How cold she felt.

“It’s up to you. I won’t force you either way.”

“Great. It would look weird if you left without me, us being together and all.”

Chapter Text

2014 - earlier

The Winter Soldier held up the binoculars to her face, observing her comrade as he jumped onto what seemed like a random car, reached into the back seat, pulled a man out, and threw him under an eighteen-wheeler. So, an average morning.

He fired several shots into the car before reaching in and pulling out the steering wheel. The car then disappeared from her view. Had she had any control over her thoughts, she might have wondered why she, or as she had been dubbed, ‘The Winter Soldier clean up unit’. Had been brought along.

Usually, she went in after his missions, cleaning up what were usually copious amounts of evidence. Sometimes she’d be sent off on missions that required more subtlety, her more sophisticated programming allowed her handlers to adjust just how strong the yoke on her mind was.

But with this mission… any subtlety was gone, the once secretive Winter Soldier was now throwing people under lorries in broad daylight. So much for being a ‘ghost’.

They came back into view, a man was blasted off the bridge and into a bus, sending it on a collision course with several cars and a van. A woman followed, jumping off the other side of the bridge. She ran straight for the bus, but noticing the Soldier’s shadow, she paused before opening fire.

The woman put her binoculars down, preparing to rappel down the building. The instructions had come in over her earpiece. It was time for the ‘clean-up unit’ to join the fray. Her programming balked at the name because it knew that it was not her primary objective; it wasn’t what she was made to do.

She pressed a button on her belt, teetering over the edge of the building. A wire shot out, embedding itself into the concrete. She leaned forward until she was perpendicular to the building, and then she started running down.

She caught the eye of the woman, who was now running through the street, yelling at people and pushing them out of her way. Reaching the ground, the Winter Soldier cut the rope and set off after the woman.

Natasha had seen the woman rappel down the building, and she almost paused in her tracks at the familiarity of the motion. It wasn’t one single thing, but the way she moved down that building seemed so eerily widow-esque, Nat shook her head, dislodging the idea that had begun taking root.

There was nothing to be done, even if the woman rappelling down the building was who Natasha thought she was. HYDRA would have made sure of that.

Nat ran through downtown DC. She knew the Soldiers were following her, but they weren’t shooting, which meant that they were less of a threat, for now.

The asset followed her fellow Winter Soldier as he stalked the Widow through the streets of the city. The woman was a Widow, the Asset had seen enough to know that as a certainty. She lagged behind, keeping her eyes trained on the gun on the Soldier’s back. Her instructions were clear: “Make sure everything goes according to plan.”

Nothing ever went to plan, not with them, at least. She’d branched off, ensuring the Widow wouldn’t have anywhere else to run. The other man from the car, the one who had been driving, flew over the Asset’s head, using some sort of mechanism that resembled wings to stay afloat.

The Asset sighed, that must mean the team had failed, and it was all left to her to pick up the pieces. Again.

‘The asset is compromised, initiate extraction sequence.’

There it was. The consequences of coming out into the open. She had told them, told them the risks. The Ghost wasn’t suited for open-air combat; that was more her forte. But they wouldn’t listen to the Asset, even if she was on stage one and still largely capable of critical thinking. She was just a machine to them, a means to an end.

When she found him, following the homing beacon on her comm unit, he stood face-to-face with the blond S.H.I.E.L.D. agent; they were both breathing heavily, but neither of them moved to attack the other. He had lost his face guard, and his face showed more emotion than she had seen in years; his mouth downturned, his eyebrows furrowing. And his eyes, usually unreadable pits, now resembled wells of sadness. He was slipping, and the Asset should do something about it.

Chapter Text

They left the following morning, taking the first train out of Vienna they could get tickets for. Marianne didn’t care; she had a new identity, and Bucharest was as good a city as any to start a new life in. She still felt bad, pulling James from his peace in Vienna; she still felt like she was forcing him to do this, despite his protests.

“You’re thinking too hard,” He said, gently, “I feel like Ida Hansen is a little freer than that.”

“You don’t know anything about Ida Hansen; she doesn’t even have a personality yet.” She had a look, though, chocolate hair, freckles, a slight tan. Loose jeans and a hoodie at least three sizes too big, complete with a humorless expression that took all of Marianne’s effort to uphold.

James scoffed, “But I know Edvard Larsen, and he’s her boyfriend.” James had held up the mirror and read off the instructions for Marianne’s makeup. She’d never learned how to do it, or if she had, she'd long forgotten, and it’d be outdated anyway. She’d spent too much time trying to get the perfect eyeliner, only to give up. And the eyebrows, god, why did the women of this time insist on such bold brows? It all felt so wrong. Marianne hadn’t even made it out of the apartment before she rushed to the bathroom to scrub the makeup from her face.

James had rolled his eyes, but hadn’t said anything as she put on some mascara and a red lip. Safe. Familiar. She wouldn’t stretch herself to fit in if it caused her too much distress. Once she was done, James heaved a sigh of relief, as if her disastrous attempt worried him too. She promised herself she’d learn; this was her world now, and she was desperate to fit in.

“He’s not acting like it.”

James rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue further, leaving Marianne alone with her thoughts. They had decided not to follow the same formula as last time. The forged identities were the last thing they would take with them.

Hopefully, such an ardent rejection of their past would keep the ghosts at bay. Out of sight, out of mind.

The train ride was quiet, boring even. But they could do boring. Nothing happened when things were boring; boring was good. Neither of them had slept much the previous night; that much was evident from the deeper-than-usual circles under their eyes. They’d packed, sent in their letters of resignation (legally, they still had to go to work for two weeks, but considering neither Klara Meindl nor Hans Junghoff existed half an hour later, it didn’t really matter), and packed up.

They had booked a compartment, the other alternative being single seats in separate carriages. They had two narrow beds, a table, and the bathroom down the hall didn’t smell as bad as it could have. James had instantly claimed the bunk to the right, claiming it ‘looked bigger’, and rolled himself into the covers, only barely managing to take his shoes off.

“Mental,” Marianne muttered as she removed her sweater and shoes, gingerly testing the bed. By the time they had gotten settled, Vienna had changed the rolling hills and mountains of the Austrian countryside. They would be in Hungary soon, brushing past Slovakia before finally making their way into Romania.

About six hours into their twenty-hour journey, James pulled out two stacks of cards and started shuffling them together. “You play rummy?”

“Yeah?” She cleared her throat, “I think.”

James smiled, “Great.” And dealt out the twelve cards. “Let’s see how much I can remember.”

As it turned out, neither of them remembered much, and their game of rummy soon devolved into chaos. Maybe there was an error in translation, or James was yanking her chain, but this was not the rummy she played during her childhood. “You can’t put that jack there, he’s not the same suit as the others.” She protested.

“But he’s the same color,”

“That’s not how this works,” James grinned, “That smile may work on girls you’re trying to charm, but when it comes to me and a card game, nothing you can do will distract me from the fact that you are cheating.”

“So you admit it works.”

“It must, or you wouldn’t be trying. No! You can’t add a four to my set of aces.”

“Special rule.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh uh.”

“We’re a hundred years old, this is embarrassing.” Marianne threw her cards down in defeat. She tried her best to ignore James’s gleeful grin as he counted up his points. Night had fallen while they had been playing. “I’m going to take a shower and sleep, if you don’t mind.”

James started splitting the cards back into their respective decks. “No worries. I’ll keep watch.”

Marianne slid the door closed, her bag of toiletries clutched to her chest. She’d been checking back channels and other intelligence forums the whole night. There hadn’t been anything on them since the incident with Natasha, but it still paid to be aware, vigilant. Was this her life now? Wandering like a nomad with a man she barely knew (but had let kiss her), looking over her shoulder at every turn?

Maybe that was her penance, her stay in purgatory, her condemnation in the Fields of Punishment. She didn’t know all of her sins, but that didn’t matter; she had still committed them, it had been her hands on the trigger, holding the knife, squashing the throat. No amount of forgetting was ever going to change that.

The shower only had cold water. Marianne hated the cold, the way it bit down on her bones like a rabid dog, locking up her joints like sap. She shut the shower off as soon as she felt clean enough. She’d never feel clean again, that much she was sure of, blood and grime sticking to her skin, tainting her for all to see.

With that wonderful thought and brushed teeth, she returned to the compartment. James was lying on his bed, already half-asleep. The already small cot looked tiny in comparison to his large frame; it was a miracle his shoulders even fit. He grumbled something that could have been ‘good night’ or ‘bugger off’ before turning away from her on his cot.

Marianne mumbled a quick “Sweet dreams” before turning the light out and settling down into her own cot. She drifted off into a restless, albeit dreamless, sleep.

Marianne was awoken three hours later by strained grunts and gasps coming from the other end of the compartment. At first, she thought someone had broken into the compartment, so she reached for her knife, which was, as always, conveniently stashed under her pillow. She flicked the light on with her other hand, only to see that no one had broken in; the suitcase they had used to block the door was still in place. She heaved a sigh of relief before she noticed the source of the noise.

James was asleep, deep in the throes of a nightmare; his face was strained, and his shoulders were bucking wildly. “No— No—” He moaned, groaning in pain. “Don’t, don’t make me-I won’t— No!” Marianne put the knife back under her pillow, jumping over the twenty-inch gap between their beds, dodging James’s thrashing body. She locked her arms around his biceps, pushing them down into the bed. That stopped him a little, just enough for Marianne to climb over and lock her legs around his waist.

“Wake up, James, wake up!” She hated the panic that had crept into her voice. Taking a deep breath, she pressed him deeper into the mattress. She’d put a pillow over his face if it meant he’d wake up. “You’re safe, you’re not back there, you’re not him anymore!” His breathing stilled, a little, but he stayed under.

He managed to wrench his arms from her grasp, his eyes shooting open. His metal hand wrapped around her neck, lifting her up. Marianne felt her breath shortening as his fingers wrapped around her throat. She clawed at his hand, but couldn’t find any purchase on the cold metal. “James—” She choked. Her heart sank as he sat up, the look in his eyes vacant, sending chills through her body. “Let … go!” She managed to get her right leg up from under his body, kicking him in the chest. James jerked back, his hand still on Marianne’s throat.

In the second, where James’s grip loosened, Marianne sucked in a breath. James righted himself back up, gritting his teeth as the cold metal of his hand started warming up from Marianne’s reddening face. His eyes were wild, his hair plastered across his face in cold sweat, but what concerned Marianne the most was the calm that was washing over her, like she had been in this situation before, and made it out.

Black spots danced across Marianne’s vision, her head lolling back as the lack of oxygen fatigued her muscles. Any adrenaline she may have had in her body had drained away, her fingers numbing, her leg still pressed up against her chest from where she had kicked him down. Marianne grasped at her pocket, something she didn’t have, wearing an oversized shirt and short shorts. She knew that, so what was she reaching for?

She tried her best to claw out at his eyes, but her hands always deflected inches from his face. She resorted to trying to get between the panels on his arm, but her muscles were tiring, and her mind was slowing at a concerning rate. She couldn’t kick out with her leg, her knee fighting back whenever she tried to even move it.

James’s face changed in an instant, right as darkness was beginning to claim Marianne’s vision. He released her neck, leaving her to fall to the side, gulping down breath after breath of stale train air. She rubbed her throat where his fingers had pressed into her flesh. She let herself regain her breath and bearings before turning up to face him.

Marianne crept back out of James’s reach before whispering. “Soldier?”

“It’s me. I think it was me the whole time.” He croaked. “I-I’m so sorry. I was back there, and they were going to- going to.” His voice died in his throat.

“You don’t need to tell me.” Marianne crept closer, trying to keep her body language steady. She put a hand on James’s shoulder, managing to keep herself from flinching as he pressed his face into her forearm. “I-I’m okay.” The fear was catching up to her now. Something inside him had snapped; he’d become the Winter Soldier again, defaulting to violence.

James flicked his gaze up at her face. “No, you’re not. I almost choked you out.”

“I could’ve stopped you.” Maybe that was true, but she sure as hell hadn’t tried.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I think they put something in me that stops me from hurting you unless completely necessary.” She swallowed, wetting her dry throat.

James sighed. “It’s still there, isn’t it, everything they put inside us, it's still there.” He looked down at his hands, as if noticing he had them for the first time. “And I just… I would have—” He wrapped his arms around himself, his palms reaching all the way to his shoulder blades. “I was so scared,” He whispered.

“What do we do?” Marianne stepped over him, cracking open the window. Cold air buffeted her face, fraying her nerves even further.

“I don’t know.”

“I think we just have to push it down, keep it from overwhelming us.” She kept her gaze locked on the darkness as they flowed through it. James shifted on the bed behind her. “I don’t think this is the kind of thing you make go away, it’s the kind of thing you keep down every day.

Marianne finally turned from the window. James had swung his legs over into the gap between the beds, his hands clamped down on either side of him like a child waiting for their parent to banish the monster in the closet. Marianne sat down opposite him, heaving a final deep breath, stretching her neck from side to side. It was going to bruise.

“You look like hell.” She said.

James smiled one of those non-smiles, where his eyes crinkled but the corners of his mouth barely twitched. “You don’t look too hot yourself.” He shot back.

“Well, how can I look any good when I don’t get any beauty sleep?” She swung herself back into sleeping position, her hand covering the light switch.

James cleared his throat, ”Wait—”

“Don’t tell me you want to snuggle after you almost choked me out.” She quipped, but kept the light on.

“That doesn’t sound like too bad an idea.” Marianne was thankful for the dim light in the compartment, because it meant he wouldn’t see her blush. The cool air did nothing to stop the heat gathering at her collar. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

Marianne shifted to the wall. “Considering one bed was almost too narrow for you, I have my doubts, but go ahead.” She squeezed herself all the way to the wall as James grabbed his blanket and pillow, settling into the bed beside her.

Marianne turned her back to him, hitting the light switch, plunging them into darkness. “Good night,” She whispered for the second time, closing her eyes.

James shifted around before finally stilling. It was a tight fit, but not the most uncomfortable place Marianne had slept in. Plus, James ran hot; the heat a welcome feeling. Marianne had just managed to settle her breathing when she felt James’s arm drape across her waist. He must have felt her stiffen, because he quickly retracted it with a muttered, “That was out of line, I’m so sorry.”

“James, shut up.” But he didn’t move to put his arm back, which was quite alright with Marianne. She didn’t even notice its absence, like a pool of ice on her skin. Just like she didn’t notice James’s breath on the nape of her neck or how his knees pressed into her calves. And she most certainly didn’t notice the heat from her collar pool at the base of her stomach as James’s fingers found their way into her hair, gently tugging as he rolled the strands between his fingers.

Marianne stayed awake until James’s breathing slowed. She let her eyelids droop and her head sink into the pillow, ignoring the gentle throbs in her neck that kept pace with the beat of her heart.

Chapter Text

Marianne awoke with a jolt the next morning. The train was still quiet, and the sun had barely crept onto the horizon. Marianne tried to get up, only to realize she was trapped by a tangle of limbs. James’s face was buried in her hair, his snores gently lifting the strands with each exhale. She shifted gently, careful not to wake him; she did not want a repeat of the last night. She peeled his hands from where they rested at her waist and clavicle, sitting up.

James had a tranquil expression on his face. Marianne stepped over him and into the compartment, slowly taking a breath as she surveyed the outside. They were somewhere in Hungary, probably half an hour away from the Romanian border, which meant there were still several hours left of the trip ahead. Marianne grabbed her toiletry bag and crept to the bathroom.

After gulping down several mouthfuls of metallic tap water (which was not potable, but Marianne was pretty sure she’d survived worse), she examined her neck. Angry blue and purple splotches in a perfect outline of James’s bionic arm covered her neck like an awfully painful scarf, pressing a finger into the blue sent streams of pain down Marianne’s chest. Marianne swallowed the pain and dug around in the toiletry bag until she pulled out some foundation and an orange color-corrector. Luckily, Ida Hansen seemed to have a bottomless collection of various cosmetics.

Marianne blotted over the deepest blue parts of the bruise with the color corrector, letting it dry before going in with the foundation. It wasn’t perfect, but it looked more like hickeys rather than a hand-shaped imprint. Marianne waited in the stall for a little longer, going back to the compartment would be awkward, after everything that had happened last night, after how Marianne had woken up this morning.

Awkwardness or not, Marianne couldn’t lock herself in the bathroom forever. She powdered her cover job, hoping the foundation would stick.

“Morning.” James had woken up while she’d been gone, and now he was sitting up on her bed, his fingers twiddling nervously.

Marianne smiled. “How are you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?” James rolled his eyes so hard it must have hurt.

“I’ve been better,” He admitted. Marianne just nodded, careful to avoid too much direct eye contact. She told herself it was because she was worried she’d see what she saw yesterday, or today, depending on how you looked at it. That dead-eyed expression that belonged to the Soldier and Asset alike. “You look surprisingly chipper, considering your close brush with death.”

“You get used to it.” That was the wrong thing to say. James’s face darkened. “I’m fine, really. Sure, was it scary for your long-term roommate to turn into a brainwashed assassin for a moment? Yes. Have I experienced much worse things in the last year? Also, yes.”

James still had her pinned under his gaze, sending heat through her body. “That doesn’t make it okay,” he whispered.

“What do you want to do about it?” Marianne snapped, “Last time I checked, there’s no way for either of us to remove the ticking time bombs in our heads, courtesy of HYDRA, so we might as well learn to live with them.”

“I’m just worried about you. You didn’t see the look on your face last night. That’s something I never want to see again.”

“Simple solution, really, we split up in Bucharest, split the city down the middle, never stray on the other’s turf.” Marianne put her makeup bag in her suitcase, turning away from James’s disappointed face. “I get East of Giurgiului, you get West, or vice versa, I’m not picky.”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Don’t make me say it, Mari.” Marianne stiffened, the zipper halfway around the suitcase. “Because both of us know why.” The air in the carriage changed, like someone had shot it full of electricity, cranking the heat up.

Marianne left the suitcase half-unzipped. “Maybe you need to.” She took a tentative step forward, then another one, until her knees were at the end of the bed. Her arms were crossed, and she tried to school her face into a neutral expression.

“Maybe.” He scooched down the bed until his legs were on either side of Marianne’s, his hands somewhere between his lap and her waist, suspended in the air. “Because if I don’t, I think you’ll disappear.” If it weren’t for her enhanced hearing, Marianne wouldn’t have heard him. “And I don’t think I could do that a second time.” His eyes met hers, and she let herself look. His gaze was nothing like earlier; his face was softer, his pupils blown.

Marianne shuddered, slowly releasing a breath. “I won’t go anywhere, not unless you ask me to.” James’s whole posture changed; he wiped his hands on his thighs, leaning forward, until his chest made contact with Marianne’s hip. She could feel his heart beating through his shirt. His eyes darted to her lips, and her heart did a double-take. Oh.

Oh.

There was something fluttering in the desolate land that was her heart, something blooming, a feeling surging so far she was sure it would burst out of her chest and drown them both. She’d give anything to freeze time, to imprint the way James was looking at her right now into her retinas. His hands wrapped around her waist, and Marianne swore she could stay like this forever, the gentle rumble of the train, the erratic beat of her heart, James’s fingers burning holes where they rested against her skin.

“I’d never-I don’t think I could-” He stuttered. “I like your face too much to do that.” He mumbled into her shirt, slowly pulling back, as if he had to remind himself that she was still there, that it was still her. Marianne put her hands on his shoulders and briefly debated pulling him back; instead, she pushed him back gently. She sat down, cross-legged in front of him, shivering from the lack of contact.

Marianne smiled what she hoped was a sarcastic, sardonic smile, but, judging from James’s expression, she hadn’t quite pulled off the indifference. “Good news is I happen to like your face quite a lot too.” She shuffled forward on her knees, the bedspread ruffling around her legs, until she was practically straddling him, keeping her eyes trained on his face.

A beat where neither of them moves. Then two. Then three.

“Jesus, Mari, kiss me or cut it out.” James managed, the words tangling in his throat. Marianne happily obliged, threading her hands in his hair, pulling him closer, until their heaving chests collided. His lips were chapped, and he tasted like sleep, but Marianne was beyond caring. She had finally let the beast out of her chest, and she was learning what it was like not to have her insides raked apart by talons.

His hands were on her face, on her neck, trailing down her waist, burning like hellfire wherever they landed. He gripped her waist, hard, as she nipped at his bottom lip.

The train shuddered to a stop, the loss of momentum tearing them apart, hair tousled and lips swollen. The ancient intercom crackled to life: “Bucharest North. Terminus.” Then repeated the message in German, Romanian, and Hungarian. She must have misjudged how much time they had left, and from the way James was looking at her, he too must have been prepared to spend at least another hour in that compartment.

“No splitting up?” His voice was breathy, at least an octave higher than usual.

“Deal.” Marianne finished zipping up her suitcase, feeling James’s gaze on her back the whole time, like he was memorizing the way she moved. She shook the last five minutes from her system, but there was nothing she could do about the buzzing in her fingertips, back in jumpy fugitive mode, not teenagers-in-the-back-of-a-pickup mode.

They waited for the procession of travelers to pass before they lugged their own suitcases out of the train.

“Where to?”

“Not sure, but I’d steer clear of the safe houses.” Marianne pulled out her phone, scouring the map for lodging houses that wouldn’t ask too many questions.

“There’s a place up by Iacob Bologa, by the University. It was pretty crappy, but I think we’ll manage a couple of nights.” He grabbed her suitcase. “Let’s go.”

Marianne ignored the butterflies wreaking havoc in her chest. “I can take that.” She offered.

“You could.” He didn’t give her an opening to grab the suitcase back, and started making his way off of the platform.

Marianne nodded wordlessly, following him into the main terminal.

The walk to the hostel (if it could even be called that) took about an hour, James weaving through the streets on autopilot. It worried Marianne, his remembering of the place could very well mean it was HYDRA, which didn’t bode well. They had taken a chance in Vienna, but all Marianne wanted was to leave that organization in her past, where it could rot for all she cared.

The place looked just like the panel buildings surrounding it, but the front door opened to a small lobby, with a stern-looking woman at the counter. “Took you long enough,” She grumbled as she noticed James and Marianne. “And you’ve brought a friend.” The lobby was illuminated by a gentle golden light from the windows, sending streams of warmth over the brown upholstery and jaundiced wallpaper.

“Nice to see you too, Elena.” James mumbled, then, quieter to Marianne, “Met her right after D.C., found my footing here after everything. We can trust her.”

Marianne shifted, slowly cataloguing the room. “Why’d you come back to D.C.?”

“I had some unfinished business in the States.”

Elena cleared her throat. “Room for two, I presume?” Her English was good, which set Marianne on edge, just a little. Sure, this was some sort of hostel, but the woman spoke with a looseness, a carelessness that came almost exclusively from native speakers. “It’s the one all the way upstairs,” she said, handing them the keys, “Good view over the street, at the end of the hallway, by the emergency exits.” So she knew what they did, or had done.

“Thanks, again,” James grabbed the key and made for the door at the end of the hall. “C’mon,” he motioned to Marianne, who was still examining the room.

Elena rummaged through some pamphlets on her desk. “I’ve got job listings here, if you’d like to have a look.”

“Thanks, but we’re good for today. We’ll just go to the room.” Marianne followed him through the door, sending Elena a tight-lipped smile.

The older woman grumbled something along the lines of “Typical youngsters,” and went back to whatever she had been doing before they had invaded her peace.

The room was spartan, with two single beds, two tables, and a cramped bathroom. The rug was scratchy and probably covered in stains of all manner, but the place was cozy, all told. “There’s a kitchen down the hall, but we’ve got a fridge, microwave, and kettle here,” James noted.

Marianne yawned, stretching her arms high above her head, letting her sweater ride up her body. “I need a nap.” All of the last eight hours came crashing down on her, and she was out as soon as she took her shoes off.

Chapter Text

Marianne was making coffee in the microwave when James began stirring in his bed. She had slept for sixteen hours, and it was now early afternoon the following day. The kettle looked at her guiltily, but Marianne wasn’t touching it until she got rid of the considerable amount of limescale. Hunger gnawed at her stomach, lightly dragging its talons through her torso, ending with a bear-like rumble. She’d kill for a pelmeni, golubtsi, **or anything from that Ukrainian corner store in D.C., really. Well, anything but the kasha, she’d had enough of that for a lifetime.

“What time is it?” James grumbled, his voice thick and rough with sleep.

“Three eighteen pm,” Marianne replied.

James lifted himself up on his arms, slowly sniffing and blinking. “Then why do I smell coffee?”

Marianne shrugged, taking the now-warm cup from the microwave. “Only thing I found here.” She took a sip. “Pretty stale, but passable.” She said, forcing herself to swallow the sour liquid.

“I’ve got sandwiches and some pasta leftovers in the fridge, you’re welcome to them,” He mumbled. “I can’t believe you let me sleep until three.”

Marianne poured the coffee down the sink. “I only just woke up. You can hardly blame me, though, you looked so peaceful.” His face had lost the worry line it sported even now, his mouth had evened out, no longer twisted into that concerned frown.

“I slept well, for the first time in a while.”

“Good.”

“You?”

“Nothing too bad. Siberia, mostly, saw my mother more than I saw her my whole childhood, I think.” Marianne sighed. “No point worrying about that, though.” Her mother was never a source of comfort, rather a constant reminder of what had been taken from her. The woman’s eyes were always shining with the promise of what could have been, had some things just been a touch different, had she managed to defend Marianne the same way she’d protected her brother.

James sat up, leaning against his headboard, his eyes on his lap. “Tell me about her.”

“Annika Schmidt. Never knew her maiden name; she was Swedish, a doctor. Met my father when he was on an assignment for HYDRA in Denmark. Got married, had me, had my brother, moved back to Sweden in 1934.” Marianne shrugged. “She withdrew after all of this—” she gestured to her body “—happened. I don’t think she ever forgave my father for what he did.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

Marianne waved a hand, pushing off the table. She sat down at the end of James’s bed. “I think my father lied to her about what he was doing. She only found out once I was in Russia, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Enough about that, though, it’s making me feel shitty. Tell me about your parents.”

“I was born in Indiana. I still can’t remember much from before I went under. I think I had a sister, Rebecca, nothing else.”

Something inside Marianne curdled. HYDRA had stolen James’s life; he had been someone before they turned him into the Winter Soldier. She hadn’t lost anything, she hadn’t had anything, but he could have had a life, a normal life. Not whatever this was, travelling through the back alleys of European capitals with a woman who was only ever meant to be a weapon. She looked down at her hands, trying her best not to remember what they had done.

Who was she? Stripping the Soldier away? Who was she without the Asset? Nobody, just a child, who hadn’t even been given the opportunity to develop beyond nine. D.C. had been the first time she’d been allowed to be herself, with no prospect of brainwashing hidden behind closed doors.

His hand was on her shoulder, warm and reassuring. “You okay? I was hoping we could use the rest of the day to try and put our stories together. I know—I know. In Vienna, we agreed it might be too painful, but I think we should; it’ll bring us closure.”

Marianne nodded, careful to keep her head down, so he wouldn’t see the tears streaming down her face. “Sure,” She gasped, trying her best to control the sob that threatened to rack through her body at the thought of it. If he knew, if only he knew how deep the Asset went, he wouldn’t want any of this, this tenderness, this softness, the Asset didn’t deserve any of that, and Marianne was hardly distinguishable from the Asset.

His hand was hovering dangerously close to her face. “Hey, you alright there, doll?” He tried to lift her face up by the chin, but Marianne flinched away once she realized what he was trying to do. James grabbed her by the arm, his hand under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “What’s wrong? Hey, don’t cry, it’s alright.” He pulled her into a hug, resting his chin on the top of her head, rubbing lazy circles on her back.

Marianne cried, cried, and cried and cried until the chest of James’s shirt sported two salty rivulets, where her face had been nestled. “Thanks,” She mumbled, pulling away slightly. James’s hands trailed down her arms, clasping her hands. She felt better, marginally; the tears had sapped any strength that might have been used for self-pity.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Marianne shuddered a breath, exhaling as evenly as possible. “It’s…just—I don’t know who I am, without all of this.” She gestured around. “This is all I’ve ever been.” She didn’t need to say the last part out loud; you have something to go back to; all I have are my crimes.

“Well then, now you have an opportunity to become whoever you’d like.” James pressed a kiss to her temple. “We don’t have to talk about the past, if you don’t want to—”

“No. We need to.”

James pointed to the fridge, humming quietly in the corner. “Grab a sandwich? It’ll be easier to stomach if you’ve eaten something.”

Grabbing a sandwich, Marianne sat down on the bed, letting his hand rest on her knee as she took a bite. Not as good as D.C. pelmeni, but she could hardly complain. “Where do you want to start?”

James sighed, measuring his words out, as if anything might send Marianne crumbling, which wasn’t too outlandish an idea. “Why were you in Russia? Before the war. I thought HYDRA was German?”

“Germany wasn’t allowed to rearm, per Versailles. They signed a Treaty with the USSR in 1922, Rapallo. It looked like a trade agreement, but it allowed Germany to train troops and develop weapons in the Soviet Union. And, as a weapon, that included me.” She explained. She could do this, talk about history in broad strokes, in ways that didn’t mention her too much. “Obviously, I had to come back after Germany invaded—”

“Barbarossa?”

“Yep. My father lost any and all trust in Hitler after that.” Noticing James looking at her quizzically, she elaborated. “To prevent a war on two fronts, Germany and Russia had signed a non-aggression pact, splitting up Poland. Hitler went back on it, against the advice from literally everyone, then his troops got caught up in Greece, and so he had to delay the attack, which left him attacking the Soviets in the winter.”

James nodded. “You fight on the Eastern Front?”

Marianne froze. She knew what he was asking, what he wanted to know. “Not in the capacity you think,” She said lamely. “If there’s one place I would never go back to, it’s Russia, circa 1942. I was evacuated out of Stalingrad in late ‘42, right before the real shitshow started. Spent the next couple of months sleeping with a gun in my hand.”

“Then you came to Italy?”

“Then I came to Italy.” She tried to smile, but the muscles in her face wouldn’t respond. “Then I think you know the rest.”

James smiled, brushing a finger over Marianne’s jaw. “You remember that one time I took you to see the oldest pub in the UK? Well, Peggy took us, with Steve, and you two drank us under the table?”

Marianne smiled, despite herself, “Did the serum not help you stomach the alcohol?”

“Guess not, HYDRA’s wasn’t as potent as what you guys got, Erskine’s formula was something special.” Marianne rubbed her knee absentmindedly, comfort in the cold metal under her fingers.

“To be fair, German soldiers in Barbarossa were given so much alcohol, I think I would have drunk you under the table even without the serum.” She watched James’s eyes dart over her face as he laughed. “And I’m German, raised in Russia, I remember homemade vodka was pretty available wherever we went.” It went down harsh, warming her stomach against the ever-present Siberian chill. A chill she still couldn’t shake.

It was nice, reminiscing like this, if they forgot the elephant in the room, the elephant that spanned seventy years and all seven continents. “We have to come to terms with what we did, but we can’t spend the rest of our lives running from remembering.” They weren’t just running from remembering, though; they were running from the ghosts they’d left behind, the collateral they hadn’t paid any mind to at the time.

Marianne searched James’s eyes for any sign he understood what being the Winter Soldier had been like for her, but he couldn’t, of course, just like how she couldn’t understand what being ripped from a life she’d loved was like. “It’s not just what I did, the Soldier is who I am. I was never just Marianne Schmidt, I was prepped for the serum and brainwashing as soon as I could walk.”

“People change. You don’t have to be her anymore, you can just be you here.” The warmth in his gaze sent sparks up Marianne’s spine, forcing her to sit straighter, her hands tingling with anticipation. They hadn’t had a chance to discuss what had happened on the train, the way they’d both kissed like they’d been starved, like feral animals finally let out of the cage.

“With you?”

“With me.” James leaned in, letting their lips connect. “In here, you don’t have to be anyone else,” He said into her lips.

Marianne smiled, kissing him back, her fingers finding their way into his hair, gently tugging on the strands, reveling in the sound it elicited from James’s throat. “You’re making spending the rest of the day hidden in here sound enticing.”

Their lips parted, a strand of spit hanging between them like a reminder. “Maybe because that’s all I want to do, now that I’ve got you back.” His lips pressed to her jaw, slowly creeping down to her neck, smiling as Marianne tried her best to stifle the gasps that left her lips, unbidden, but not unwelcome.

He pressed a long, wet kiss to her collarbone before pulling away to admire his handiwork. He had mostly ignored her neck, which still sported the bruise from his hand. “You done there?” His breath fanned over her face in a way that was not unpleasant, goosebumps erupting down her skin as she studied the planes of his face.

“What? You need that skin space for something?” He smiled, “And, for the record, you aren’t just the Soldier. If you were, I wouldn’t be here today, I would’ve died in Zola’s lab.”

“Yeah,” She breathed. They had wiped her for that, cranked her so tight it took the Allies five weeks to break through. Yet they still hired Zola into S.H.I.E.L.D. after that, go figure. They had wiped her for lesser transgressions. “You were practically fresh off the boat back then.” She remembered the way he had looked when they had brought him in, high off his head on sedatives, mumbling his name and serial number like a maniac.

James smiled, and Marianne went back to her sandwich, which had lain dejectedly next to them the whole time. James’s eyes followed Marianne’s lips as they finished off the rest of the sandwich. She licked her fingers, resting her hands on the bed between them. “Shall we start? Properly now? What was our first op?”

Chapter Text

Ida Hansen found a job as a cleaning lady in a luxury hotel, the kind that parked your car and carried your bags, and breakfast was attended in floor-length gowns and three-piece suits. She saw things she’d rather not see, but at the end of the day, Ida Hansen could disappear, and Marianne Schmidt could take her place. Ida Hansen kept to herself, never looking the patrons in the eye. She’d listen in on conversations, not because she wanted to eavesdrop, but because they were impossible to miss.

She’d walk from the hotel to a small greengrocer's five blocks from the apartment, where James helped the owner, a stoic Romanian man in his sixties, organize inventory. She’d pick him up, and they’d walk home together, hand in hand. They’d cook dinner, fighting over room in the shared kitchen with the two families that lived on their floor.

By the time Marianne got off work, the store was closed, and James would be in the back, helping unload boxes that no regular man should be able to lift by himself. The owner, Bogdan, watching from the side, pretending not to notice. He’d offer Marianne honey biscuits with a walnut on top while they waited for James to finish. Marianne had offered to help out, but both James and Bogdan had sent her packing, so she sat, slowly chewing on a honey cookie, as James loaded the last of the boxes into the back of the store.

Once the last box was safely stowed, James and Marianne made their way back through the store, and the street they exited through the front led directly to their apartment. “How did work go?” James asked, just like he had asked in Vienna. Marianne’s Romanian was rusty, and speaking Danish, albeit more in-character for Ida, would have been rude to Bogdan, who was locking doors behind them.

“The usual. You?”

“Fine, y’know—” James paused, and Marianne didn’t notice until she found herself at the entrance to the store, seven figures waiting at the checkout counter, with nothing in front of them. Teenagers, all of them blond, the leader wearing a brand-new leather jacket and playing with a Swiss Army knife. Their eyes slowly roved over Marianne’s body. “Run along, little bird, leave the big boys to it.” Their Romanian was even more appalling than Marianne’s. She was tempted; every sign of trouble should be treated like a nuclear waste depository, as far away from anyone as humanly possible. All Marianne wanted was to be left alone, preferably with James, so they could live out the rest of their lives in peace.

Instead, she asked, “Who are you meant to be?”

The men must have recognized that her Romanian was shitty the same way theirs was, because they switched to German. “Just businessmen trying to earn a living. A living that doesn’t concern you.”

Bogdan elbowed past Marianne, but stopped short before the seven blonds. They reminded Marianne of the bullies in her teenage years. When she was still treated like a butler, her accent and clothes mocked by boys Hitler had made feel superior. She’d go pick up her brother from school, and try her best to ignore the snickers from his friends as she tried her best to keep her hands from shaking. Ah, the good old days, when she’d shiver in the Berlin heat, the ice shards of Siberia never quite leaving her bones.

“Gentlemen,” Bogdan raised his hands in a placating gesture, “There’s no need for theatrics, I’ve already spoken with Ben.”

“We don’t care. You owe us, and we’ve come to collect.” Bogdan’s hands faltered, his face turning ashen as he looked at Marianne and James guiltily. “And you, being a fucking idiot, brought these poor schmucks into it.”

“Leave them out of it. They’ve nothing to do with it.”

“They saw us.”

“They won’t speak to anyone, trust me.” He cleared his throat guiltily, “They’ve got their own problems.” He covered his mouth after he said that, as if he regretted it, but it was too late.

James was at Marianne’s side, staring daggers through the old man’s head. He knew a sell-out when he saw it. “Well then, that makes it all the better.” One of the youths sneered, “We’ll take your money, and then have your employees arrested, for whatever they’ve done.”

“You take one more step, you die.” James sneered. Marianne tried not to cringe away; the ice in his voice reminded her of herself, back when she’d try to stand up to her brother’s friends, much to Erik’s chagrin. They never let him forget that his sister was a freak, and he’d never let her forget that she embarrassed him. She may have been stronger, but she had been forbidden from hurting him, something he found out quickly.

The leader looked at his accomplices, as if counting out the odds, which didn’t look all that great for James and Marianne. James rolled his shoulders, wincing. Marianne scowled. The lifting was taking a toll on his metal shoulder, and there was only so much Marianne could do to keep his arm in running order. Her own knee was much less complicated, and now that she was calmer, had more time, and wasn’t doing ballet, it was much easier to take care of. The engineering was good, and all she had to do was make sure it was greased. The scar-pocked seam of James’s left shoulder was much worse.

“Your criminals are itching for a fight.”

“Come and get it, then.”

The leader snarled at Marianne. Snarled like a feral animal. “How about we take it outside, little bird, we wouldn’t want to ruin Bogdan’s store, now would we?”

Marianne shot James a look. “Don’t even think about it. You’ll fuck up your arm even more. Keep an eye on this asshole, make sure he doesn’t fuck it up even more.” She gestured to Bogdan, who stammered out an apology.

Scenes from that spring in Berlin kept coming back. The boys, wearing their swastika armbands, mocked her. Erik, breaking her nose, spitting at her whenever she walked by. Even her father was more distant than usual; he had just scored the government contract and was busy preparing for Germany’s rearmament. Her mother wouldn’t look her in the eye, guilt pouring off of her in roiling, putrid waves.

Her mother would run away to Sweden with Erik within the year, and her father would bury himself in his hunt for the Tesseract, sending her back to Russia for another eight years.

The youths stopped in an alley, slowly circling Marianne until they had her surrounded. The leader had a knife; it was safe to assume the rest of them did too. Marianne had a gun, a pistol with six rounds in the magazine. There were seven youths. She left it tucked inside her jacket. She didn’t need more attention.

They circled around her in what was meant to be a show of macho strength, but they didn’t look very tough, considering she was one woman, and there were seven of them. They must have suspected something, because otherwise they’d have been on her in an instant.

“If you guys spend any more time circling, I’ll start to think you’re scared.” She taunted. The violence she always kept so neatly held down threatened to overflow. Johann had given her some reprieve, but that incident had made her sad, more than anything else. Her taunt worked because the leader, to her left, lunged for her, spurring the other men into action.

Marianne grabbed his knife arm, twisting it back so that he whimpered and dropped the knife into her hand, letting her plunge it into the side of one of his goons, who had gotten a little too close for comfort. Pushing the leader’s arm past its limit and hearing the resounding crack, she dropped him to the ground.

The rest of the group looked to each other, their leader and one of their comrades lay at Marianne’s feet, in various states of injury. She could see them weighing their options, running away like cowards, or facing possible dismemberment. They chose the latter.

There was one time, after a particularly bad beating, that Marianne went to her mother. Erik had broken her wrist and bruised her ribs. Blood ran down her face from where he’d smashed it onto the dining room table. Her mother had taken one look at her, steeled herself, and spat: “You are not my daughter, my daughter is dead, her father killed her.” That was the first time she had begun to refer to herself as ‘the Asset’, the first time she had felt so thoroughly disconnected from her own self that she’d given up her name.

Marianne made quick work of the remaining five men. Two went down after kicks to the head, one with a broken nose and cheek, the fourth after having his face smashed into a lamppost, and the final one fell to the ground with a thud after Marianne snapped his neck with her thighs, her stomach straining as she swung around in the air. She landed on her feet, a little heavier than she was used to, she was out of practice, but not that out of practice.

As soon as that thought crossed her mind, arms clamped around her sides, pinning her arms to her body. He started whispering feverishly. Marianne recognized the words, panic sending her knees buckling as she started to lose control over her limbs. She began straining, kicking, scratching, and gnawing. She started to make progress, but he was almost at the end of the list.

Marianne fell to the ground, a mask sliding into place. The last year began fading, and all she could do was lift herself from the ground, looking the man in the eye.

“Soldat?”

“Ready to comply,” And Marianne was gone. The Asset was back, her hands shaking.

The man crossed his arms, pulling his hood back. “Welcome back, Agent Bolkonskaya, my name’s Ward.” American, young. The Asset shook his hand, careful not to grip him too hard. Handlers never liked that, being reminded she was stronger than them. “You’re going to help me keep a promise.”

Chapter Text

1992

The Asset hadn’t been given the order to leave for Ohio yet, and she was getting restless, or, as restless as a mindless assassin could get. Luckily, the scene before her was proving enough to distract her. The other soldier, his arm polished to a gleam, was fighting the death squad HYDRA had injected with serum. Where they had found more serum, the Asset wasn’t sure.

This was the first member of the squad, and he was beating the soldier, badly. The doctors and techs surrounding the cage looked nervous; the squad hadn’t been wiped, and the experience of assimilating the serum had not been a pleasant one. They were a flight risk on the best of days, dangerous, heartless, unpredictable.

The man twisted the soldier’s arm; had it not been replaced by a hunk of metal, he would have snapped something in the shoulder by now. He picked the soldier up and kicked him against the glass. The soldier slid down at the Asset’s feet, separated now only by the glass. The men paused, and a doctor approached the man to measure his vitals. The doctors surrounding the grimy cage seemed pleased, while the man in the red beret watched from inside the cage, intrigued.

It happened so fast not even the Asset and her enhanced senses could track it. The man grabbed the doctor and pushed him to the ground, signaling the others to stand up as the unenhanced guards approached. The batons the guards carried were largely decorative; they never needed them for either of the Winter Soldiers, but their inefficiency was only highlighted as the squad ripped through guard after guard.

The man in the red beret had a gun to the soldier’s head, forcing him through the cage, as he threw anyone trying to harm the man to the side. He reached the only entrance to the cage and shut it behind him. The man lowered the gun and watched with dissatisfaction as the squad ripped through the guards.

Once the final guard was dispatched, either unconscious or dead, the squad stood, assembled behind their leader, malice in their eyes as they surveyed the techs and orderlies gathered around them.

“Out! Everyone out!” The man in the red beret shouted, and everyone sidled out of the room, locking the concrete doors behind them.

The new room they had assembled in had a wall covered in screens, showing the scene inside the cage. None of the squad had moved, and it would only be a matter of time before they found a way out.

The Asset was pushed to the back, where the soldier was being checked out by one of the doctors. His eyes were voids, his posture stiff as he watched the screens. The cage slowly filled with gas until the squad disappeared from the cameras’ sights. A hush fell over the room, and the gas slowly began clearing.

The squad was still standing, the gas having no effect on them. “Prepare the firing squad!” Someone yelled from the front of the room. Some of the men began to move, before—

“No!” The man in the red beret, “They need to be processed. We can still solve this. They cannot go to waste; there is no way for us to engineer the serum on our own.”

“We cannot process them. Not in this state.” The other voice replied.

“I have an idea. Send the soldier in.”

“One of them managed to overpower him. How do you think he’ll fare against the whole squad?”

The doctor, who had finished his examination on the soldier, sighed, “Sir, he is in no state to fight them. He’s slipping.” It was true, the soldier was beginning to show more emotion than usual, disappointment, mostly, with a tinge of fear.

“Not him. She’s assimilated the serum better than any of them. She can do it.” Had the Asset been wound any looser, she may have felt her heart drop. As she was, she couldn’t feel much of anything.

They wouldn’t give her a weapon, worried how the squad could use it if they got it from her grasp. The soldier tried to grab her by the arm, keep her in the room. She wrought herself from his grip and made her way back into the room with the cage, the man with the red beret at her back.

“Neutralize, don’t kill.” And he left the room, locking the door behind him. The squad shifted, marking her, tearing her apart with their gaze, assessing her weak points.

The Asset rolled her shoulders. The only enhanced target she had ever fought had been the other soldier, and while she had beaten him, at least a couple of times, there was no saying what would happen if she took on a full squad of even stronger targets.

The cage door opened with a rusty creak. The Asset entered the chamber like a lamb going to the slaughter, and the squad, like the vultures they were, descended onto her. She tried her best to deflect their attacks with brute force, the same way she had been taught to. That usually worked when the targets were weaker than her, but these killers were at least equal in strength, if not magnitudes stronger than she was.

The leader twirled into a flying kick that would have taken her head clean off had she not sidestepped at the last second, right into the arms of the blonde woman. Arms locked around her, the Asset bucked and squirmed, but then the punches started raining down, and all she could do was try to remain conscious.

A fist connected with her nose, sending a deafening crack through the room and tears to the Asset’s eyes. Her face was swelling, her eyes squeezing shut. She could hear herself whimpering, quietly, deafened by a slamming noise from the room next door and the squelch of punches as they moved on from her face to the rest of her body. The pain began to reach through the programming deeper and deeper into her bones, paralyzing her in its embrace.

She began to retreat from consciousness in flashes, but something in her, be it instinct or the programming, roared at her to fight back. It did nothing to staunch the pain, which came in wave after wave, each worse than the last.

Jab to the face, then to the stomach. She doubled over as stars began dancing across her vision. The woman’s grip never weakened, but the Asset flung herself backwards, feeling the back of her skull connect with the woman’s nose. Just for a second, the woman’s grip loosened. A second was enough for the Asset to grab the woman’s wrists, fling her around, and land a kick between her shoulders, her arms still firmly in the Asset’s grip.

The woman roared as her shoulders were pulled from their sockets, but went down. The Asset spun. There were four squad members remaining. The bald one lunged first and had the others hesitant to follow him.

The Asset would have been no more, but in their hubris, the rest of the squad just watched. Their eyes grew wide as the Asset, her senses sharpened by pain and adrenaline, dodged his first flurry of punches, before, faster than any of them could follow, she had her back flush with the man’s, stomping down onto his instep. The man curled from the pain, and the Asset used that opportunity to elbow him in the face, before shifting to face the other soldiers, kicking the man who had just fallen at her feet until he stilled.

The left half of the Asset’s face had gone numb, with her eye swollen fully shut, but now, with adrenaline coursing through her serum-filled veins, she felt unstoppable. The other three men, in a much more coordinated attack, jumped out and began attacking, using old HYDRA combat moves. Moves the Asset was very much familiar with.

They danced around, punches, kicks, dodges, and feints in a horribly uncoordinated dance where one wrong move meant destruction. The hammering in the Asset’s head had ground to silence, just as the hammering on the other side of the steel door grew louder and louder.

One of the men faltered, giving the Asset the opportunity to grab his hand and twist, forcing him down to his knees, where she could then grab both sides of his head and bring her knee jabbing up to his face.

While that move had gotten one of the targets out of the way, the most dangerous two still remained a threat. They were much less confident now, but, if anything, that meant they posed much more of a threat; they were much less likely to make a careless mistake.

The Asset was tired, and her body felt like it had gone through a meat grinder, but she had a mission, so she could push that all to the side. It proved too much; the pain was slowing her down now, and before she knew it, she was being flung across the cage, into the glass, much like the other soldier. The Asset twisted, knowing that ending up on the floor was a death sentence with these two, but her body wouldn’t respond. The Asset landed with a crack of her right wrist.

The Asset stilled, hoping the men would buy the ruse and give her enough time to collect herself. They did, but she knew she still had to finish her mission.

A segment of pipe lay next to her head, dull and rusted, but solid. Solid enough to cave someone’s head in. The Asset grabbed the pipe in her good hand. The movement did not go unnoticed by the two men, who were at her side in an instant, hoisting her to her feet. The Asset struck the one on her left. He grunted, but didn’t go down. She tried again, and again, until he finally collapsed in a bloody heap. Lightning erupted from the Asset’s mouth, an uncomfortable tingling sensation spreading throughout her body.

The last man, the leader, had gotten his hands on one of the cattle prods and was trying his best to electrocute the Asset, but, much like the batons, the cattle prods had little effect on the enhanced soldiers. The man, realizing the prod was not having the desired effect, threw it to the side spitefully, not noticing the fact that it would still make a solid baton in his hands.

The Asset tried to swing at the man’s head, but he caught her hand, pulling her closer to him. He tried kicking her knee in, but went for the metal one, which wouldn’t budge, not even under his strength. The Asset twisted her ankle around the leader’s leg, unsuccessfully trying to bring him down.

They were locked, both of them had their feet planted solidly on the ground, and their hands clasped above their heads. The Asset’s wrist was close to giving out, the pain sending scorching waves through her arms.

The man’s grip loosened. “Do you ever get sick of being one of their lackeys?”

The Asset didn’t reply; instead, she shifted her stance and aimed a lethal kick at the man’s head. He caught her leg, and in a deafening snap, broke it. The Asset roared, her voice drowned out by the rush of pain to her head. The man knelt down beside her, his eyes suddenly gentle.

“I’m sorry it had to go like this.”

“I’m not,” The Asset gargled, before punching him in the jaw, his entire body jerking back. It took all of her strength to raise herself off of the floor and straddle the man, holding her injured wrist to her chest. She let her fist rain down on the man’s face, one punch after another, in a sick rhythm, alternating squelches and shivering breaths.

The roaring in her ears silenced the voice of the man from the door, so when they finally pulled her off of him, gaining more yelps as they tugged on her injured wrists, the man’s face was almost unrecognizable.

They dragged the Asset out of the room. Not into the room with the monitors, but the other room, the bad room, the room with the chair. The Asset’s legs dangled, leaving her to hiss with pain whenever her broken leg met a bump. The adrenaline and the programming were slowly seeping away, leaving her with nothing but the pain.

Thrust down on one of the gurneys, the Asset tried to take stock of the situation. The other soldier was in the chair, held down by the restraints. He had been looking at the man in the red beret with murder in his eyes. When he saw the other soldier, alive albeit not unharmed, he started straining against the restraints, spitting the leather bit from his mouth.

He screamed something unintelligible as the mask descended onto his face. The man in the red beret shifted his attention to the Asset. He signaled to a doctor, and the next thing the Asset knew, a needle was in her neck and she was drifting off, far away from the pain and terror of the last half hour.

Chapter Text

“Bolkonskaya, scour the old Cold War channels, find the active tracker,” The man, the handler, ordered. B did as she was told, the ancient (by their standards) tech humming beneath her fingers. “Coulson’s got a thing for old, decrepit tech that was phased out for a reason.”

The handler was right, there was an active tracker, currently en route across the Atlantic Ocean, 30,000 feet in the air. B sat there, for a second, staring at the red dot moving across her screen

The handler, who preferred it when she called him Ward, leaned over her shoulder, scanning the screen as the red dot pulsed. “Good job, I’ll have Whitehall send in some quinjets.”

B didn’t say anything in response. The handler didn’t like that, sometimes, B thought she saw flashes of guilt cross his face, but this time he just turned away. Whitehall was the interesting one; he watched her with a scientific fascination, which she supposed she should have expected, as someone enhanced, someone other. He had greeted B like an old friend, but didn’t act surprised when she didn’t remember him. He talked to her in German, as if that language brought her anything else than memories of pain.

Ward tried to be her friend, kept referencing a ‘time before’ where they had known each other, expecting it all to come back. B kept her mouth shut, trying her best to be polite. “Wheels up in five.” He was back, and B was still staring at the red dot. “You’ll get to see the team again.” He said. That was another thing, ‘the team’. B didn’t work in a team. She had an associate, Dolokhov, but he wasn’t here, or else she’d have seen him already.

The handler offered her a hand as they made their way into the jets. B ignored him. Strapping into the seat, she stared forward as the troops around her prepared. B was always ready; she wore her suit, the one with the leather top covered in straps and a red star sewn over her left shoulder. The handler had presented it to her as some great gift, as if it weren’t just a terribly uncomfortable uniform.

B strapped in, instinctively reaching for her face, surprised to find it uncovered. She looked at the handler, who was staring at her intently. Wasn’t he supposed to bring her a mask too? What if someone saw her face?

The journey was quick, uneventful. As soon as they docked, the handler stood, motioning for B to do the same. They entered the S.H.I.E.L.D. plane through the upper cabin. It was familiar, the lab, the seats. The handler paused when he heard the voices coming from the room below—

“How the hell did they find us? We were cloaked,” A man, someone from the ‘team’?

The handler motioned for B to follow him, slowly making his way down the stairs. “Raina's tracker. Old frequency S.H.I.E.L.D., used during the Cold War.” He said, as suave as ever. “What can I say? I'm a history buff.” They stepped down into the main room, surrounded by raised guns.

Unfazed, the handler raised his arms slightly, and B moved into the center of the circle. There were two women right next to each other, and the man who had spoken earlier stood next to the only woman not raising a gun. Another man, his eyes darting between the handler and one of the women, kept shifting his gun between B and the handler, as if unsure which one of them was the bigger threat. A stubby man, wearing a grey and orange lanyard, stared the handler down, malice scrunching his face until he resembled a disgruntled Persian cat.

The handler fixed the older woman with a taunting look. “Lower your weapons. Anyone shoots, the plane goes down. We all die.” He deadpanned.

“Maybe it's worth it.” The woman replied, raising her gun. Her eyes darted to B, slowly raking down her figure, taking in the whole uniform. She shifted her gun from the handler’s face to B’s. B knew the feeling that settled over her. She’d been recognized.

The other man, the one who had been sizing B up, turned his gaze to the woman. “Let’s not get carried away just yet.” Keeping his gun trained on the handler.

The younger woman, to the first woman’s left: “First, you gave us Bakshi. Now you're back with HYDRA? Pick a side, Ward.” She spat at the handler. This was personal; the tension in the room was roiling as the situation unfolded.

The handler darted a gaze to B. “Oh, I have. Don't worry,” he turned to the curly-haired woman, putting the two raised guns squarely to his back. “Let's go.”

The woman pretended to contemplate it for a second. “With pleasure.”

“You, too.”

“What?” The woman raised her gun higher. She wasn’t going to shoot; B could sense that much.

“I made you a promise, Skye. I'm here to keep it.” His voice suddenly tender. It dawned on B. This was the team he had told her so much about. These people, the people he had betrayed, were his beloved team. A team B had allegedly been a part of. “You're coming with us.”

“The hell she is.” The older woman snarled, but still, she didn’t shoot. “She's not going anywhere.”

“May.” Skye’s voice was tinged with fear, but she managed to keep it steady.

The handler grinned like he had grinned that evening in Bucharest. “She comes, or the deal's off.”

“Shut up.” May spat.

“May, if I don't go with him, he's gonna blow this plane to pieces.”

“They're HYDRA. They'll do it anyway.” That, B supposed, was true, and her neck was getting tired from shifting around from person to person as they swapped lines like they were throwing around a hot potato.

“You can't trust him, Skye,” May warned.

The handler’s voice took on that soft quality he used when he wanted B to do something. “Yes, you can. Skye, look at me.” The puppy eyes, too. But these women wouldn’t listen to him like B did.

“Don't talk to her.” But May’s eyes were fixed on B, as if sizing her up, comparing her to something in her mind.

“Skye, I give you my word...” He paused, “Come with me, we won't fire a single shot.” B’s muscles were straining from the anticipation. These people wanted the handler dead, they hated him, but something, not the loyalty to each other or their will to survive, was holding them back. “Everyone gets out alive.”

The pudgy man shirked at that last part. “Good one. Is that what you told my brother before you killed him?” He snarled.

The handler looked behind B, as if expecting someone else to pop up. “How many of you are there?” He asked.

“Skye...” The women shared a look, a knowing look. “...you can't.”

“There's no other way. You know that. Whatever happens, I can handle myself.” May looked to B at that, then back to Skye, but Skye was already halfway to B and the handler.

Skye relinquished her gun, albeit reluctantly, making her way to the staircase.

“Oh, Skye, don't forget your tablet.” The woman who must have been Raina smiled, confidence oozing from her pores, “You know, the one with the map of the city on it.”

Skye shot May one last look before following Raina up the stairs. B followed, but the handler stayed back, just for a second. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” May said from below. The handler laughed before following the women back to their Quinjet.

The Quinjet detached from the plane, Skye, Raina, and B buckled themselves in as Ward gave orders to the pilots. “Who’s this?” Skye asked, motioning to B. “May recognized her.” She added. Raina and Skye were sitting opposite B, allowing Skye to stare without having to look at Raina.

“You should too. This is Melanie Newman, your good friend from the good old days.” B had no idea who Melanie Newman was, but Skye did.

Skye scoffed. “Mel disappeared after I blew your cover.”

“That she did,” The handler said, settling down next to B. “But I found her again.” Running a hand down B’s cheek. She had to resist the urge to bite it off.

Skye shook her head. “You know Melanie Newman was a codename? Did she ever tell you that?” B saw what she was doing; she was trying to rile the handler up, which was wise, considering he was prone to the occasional outburst.

“I’m aware of that, yes.” The handler said, his voice measured. “Her real name is Marya Bolkonskaya.” He jutted his chin out, as if knowing B’s names was some sort of achievement.

Raina chuckled. “Marya Bolkonskaya is a character from War and Peace, you know that, right?”

The handler didn’t say anything, but a muscle in his jaw twitched.

“You’re telling me she never told you her real name? You must have been a pretty shitty lover.” Sky taunted. The handler took a deep breath, flexing his fingers as if imagining them wrapped around Skye’s throat.

An explosion echoed in the distance, but B kept her gaze forward, trained on one of the guns in the open cases. She imagined wrapping her hand around the grip, pulling the trigger, letting a bullet loose into her skull.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The woman you look like... Agent May? I knew her. How did you end up with her face?

Serving Dr. Whitehall.

That's got to be an interesting story. Doesn't it bother you?

I didn't have a purpose before. I was lost. Now I'm happy to comply.

So you're loyal to Hydra. You should talk to ‘Marya’ over there, she too knows a little too much about compliance.

I'm loyal to Dr. Whitehall.

There was a guy I used to be loyal to. He went completely insane.

Not another word.

Happy to comply.

Did he hurt you?

Oh, good. You're awake.

I've waited years for this.

Do you know what your mother's special gift was?

No.

She didn't age, at least, not like the rest of us. I wonder if that's your gift, as well, or if you're special in another way. Discovery requires experimentation. I killed your wife. And before I kill you, I want you to watch what I do to your daughter.

The sound of gunshots pulled B from her sleep. Her vision was skewed, and her hands were numb from the cuffs.

Whitehall rose from where Cal’s body lay. “Stay here.” He ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Well, it seemed like everyone was complying today.

“You okay there? Marya?” The handler taunted. “Sorry. I forgot. It’s not your fault.” He added, with a surprising amount of tenderness.

Skye gagged. “No. We aren’t doing this again. It was too bad to watch the first time. No. Ew.” She shook her head, genuine disgust on her face. B wanted to ask what they weren’t going to do again, but her mouth was glued shut.

The handler’s gaze darkened. B tried her best to ignore the tension that was slowly building in the room. “You know none of that was real, right?” Pain in the handler’s voice, genuine pain, not the show he put on when he was trying to convince someone of his faux sob story. “She didn’t really love me; she just kept me in line.” A slimy feeling spread through B’s limbs, settling in her chest. Her skin crawled as bile threatened to rise up her throat, pressure building in her stomach.

“That makes it even worse,” Skye’s face was twisted in disgust. “That is so unbelievably fucked up.”

“Yeah, broke my heart.”

“You always were a self-centered prick. I meant fucked up for her. She had to— she had to—” Skye couldn’t finish the sentence.

The handler scoffed. “What? Have sex with me? There are worse things—” The sickening feeling creeping along B’s skin prickled.

“I swear, Ward, the moment I am out of these cuffs, I am killing you where you stand—” Skye was interrupted by gunshots. B’s eyes shifted to Cal, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Cal was enhanced, B could tell that from shaking his hand, and unbelievably unstable. B wanted to be out of the cuffs and as far away as possible when he woke up.

“Hey.” The handler said to the guard in his best ‘bro voice’. “Hear that? They're coming for us. I saw how many guys you have on your side. You are sorely outnumbered, my friend.” He was unaffected by Skye’s threat. “Tell you what. Let me go now. I'll tell them to take it easy on you. Maybe cut off an ear, pop an eye.”

“Shut up.” The guard’s voice was muffled by his mask, but the rage came out clear enough

“Just trying to be helpful. I'm a lot nicer than he's gonna be.” Cal grabbed the guard, placing something on him that made him twitch, before wrapping an arm around the guard’s neck and snapping it.

“You're welcome.”

“Now, let's get out of here.”

Skye piped up from where she had seen her father murder a man. “Yeah, me, too!” It wouldn’t be the last time either. B knew that much. Still, watching your father kill someone for the first time was a defining event, but now wasn’t the time for melancholy. “Come on!”

Cal held up a hand in a placating gesture. “It's safer here.” He turned his head toward the handler in shame. “And I'm about to do something to Whitehall. I don't want you to see me like that.”

“I don't mind... Seeing. Hell, I'm happy to help.” The handler smiled.

“No. I get to do this myself.”

Skye shook the chair, but the restraints held strong. She could only watch as her father ran out of the room, leaving the three of them behind, still bound. “What? Hey!” She yelled after her father.

The handler rocked his chair until her was beside the dead man, pushing his whole body down, he managed to grab the dead man’s knife, freeing his hands from the restraints. He then moved on to Skye, cutting through the zip ties cuffing her hands with a ruthless efficiency. “I'm sorry your little family reunion didn't go as planned. The least I can do is get you out of here.” Skye rubbed her wrists, standing up. “Sit down while I check the door.”

The handler checked B’s cuffs, but there was no way he was getting through them without the key or a laser cutter. He checked the door, looking this way and that, never noticing Skye grabbing the dead guard’s gun and unloading several rounds into his side.

B did nothing, truthfully, she was hoping Skye would use what was left in that gun to finish her off, if only to get rid of the feeling threatening to overflow like vomit from her mouth. Instead, Skye turned to her with a pitying glance before returning her attention back to the handler. “Never turn your back on the enemy. You taught me that.”

The handler fell to the ground. He was more surprised than hurt, but it could get really ugly if he didn’t get medical help soon. Instead of trying to find a way out of his dire situation, he turned to B. “Forget anything Skye said about our past. She was lying. I was lying to get her to go along with it.” B blanked, just for a second, before coming back. Her body was still uncomfortably tingly, but she could no longer remember why.

The cuffs were becoming uncomfortably tight around B’s wrists, but there was nothing she could do but watch the handler slowly slip into oblivion. The wrongness of the situation could no longer be ignored. No one could hurt a handler; she wasn’t even allowed to touch him without his express approval. She had tried, once, when he had withheld her knife, right after she had tried slitting her own throat.

B heard footsteps coming down the hall. She tensed, expecting Skye to come back. Having her back to the door, B was affirmed in this suspicion when she heard the handler yelp, before muttering a “You here to finish me off?”

“Whitehall's dead. Coulson killed him.” Not Skye, then, but not-May. Her voice was frayed. The asset has been compromised. B’s hands lurched for her pocket, an innate response, like a reflex to that one thought. The damned cuffs prevented her from moving her arms too far down, so she strained in place.

“So you're free.” No. No one was ever free, all it took was a few words, he handler knew that. So why was he lying to not-May?

“I don't know what to do.” Hurt, betrayal, confusion. It was all wrong; the Assets were never meant to feel, as it interfered with the missions. The Assets could never come back. But this one had, and B was going to do something about it.

“Help me up. I can get us out of here. Then we'll figure it all out.” The handler groaned as not-May lifted him. She must have propped him up against a wall because once she came into B’s eyeshot, she was alone, albeit covered in the handler’s blood.

Not-May had the keys to the cuffs, not-May opened the cuffs, but did not offer B a weapon. “Come on,” not-May whispered, and they both grabbed the handler under one elbow, hauling him through the compound.

Everyone was either gone or dead. B and not-May hauled the handler through the empty corridors, occasionally stopping when his groaning reached a pitch too high for comfort.

Not-May led them to a Quinjet, not-May fired up said Quinjet, before leaving the steering over to B, focusing her efforts on the handler. B brought the Quinjet to cruising altitude. “Where to?” She asked.

“Massachusetts. Cambridge, Massachusetts.” Vague, but B could do vague. All she needed was a place to think, a place to collect her thoughts and bring not-May back into the fold, where she belonged, where she’d find peace.

Not-May spoke up after about an hour. “He’ll live, but we need to find a place to stabilize him properly; a Quinjet 30,000 feet in the air is not sufficient.” She stated, like it were an astute observation rather than an obvious fact.

What not-May didn’t know was that as soon as they made it to a safehouse, she was getting a fist to the temple and a proper wipe. B wouldn’t work with rogue Assets; the unpredictability of those fickle things some people called emotions (but she called liabilities) got in the way of getting the job done. Not-May was going to be a problem, and B was going to be the solution.

They landed on a field just outside the city. The handler handed B a slip of paper, its edges frayed and covered in bloody fingerprints. “Go to that address, it’s a gym, use the side entrance, and go to the gender-neutral locker room. There you’ll find a locker with no key and no number. Open it up any way you can.” The handler coughed, and not-May’s hands clamped down onto his shoulders, keeping him steady. “Take the bag, leave through the side entrance, and meet us at this—” another slip of paper, where was the handler getting all of this? “—address. Don’t be seen, you have six hours.”

It took B three hours. She thrived on this sort of work: get in, get out, don’t let anybody see you, pick up the drop. She was good at it, too; she didn’t even have to kill anyone because they saw her sneaking around in that ridiculous suit. She got the bag; it wasn’t too heavy, so limited weaponry, but that was fine; she’d find another way out.

Not-May opened the door, and the handler’s weak “Come here” protected her from B’s fist. Not-May wasn’t a handler, not-May was an Asset, a faulty Asset. An Asset that had to be put back in its place. B followed the order. The handler was splayed across a sofa, a towel under him to protect the upholstery. Color had returned to his face somewhere over the deep South, and he was tentatively moving his arm, as if to assess the damage. “Well done, it seems I was wasting your talents.”

B stayed silent. Handlers didn’t like it when she talked back, or when she talked at all. It reminded them she was a human being and not a weapon to be used and discarded. The handler shot a look at where not-May stood. “What do you want with her?” He whispered.

“She’s a compromised Asset. I want to… uncompromise her. Find the words that will make her comply.”

“By any means necessary?”

“By any means necessary.”

The handler sighed, shooting one last look at not-May, before settling his gaze on B. Ants erupted under her skin, and her stomach lurched uncomfortably. “She is now your handler, too. Just like me. You listen to her. But—” there was always a but, “—she doesn’t know what you are. All she knows is that you are working with me. Working with me of your own free will. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Act like it.”

B was on five; she couldn’t deviate too much from what the handler said. But, not-May was now a handler, and handlers weren’t to be harmed; they were to be listened to, and B was ready to comply. B would always comply, no matter how longingly she looked at their knives and guns, if they said to put them down, she would, and she wouldn’t think about what she had wanted to do, until the urge became too strong again.

Chapter Text

B was sitting in a shitty diner, slowly chewing through what was allegedly ‘the best fried chicken in the county’. The chicken was sub-par, which made it easier for B to stretch it out for the hour it took the man to arrive. His hairline was receding, and the blond combover wasn’t doing anything to help. He wore square glasses and a classic hipster-geek setup.

B texted the handler.

The handler and not-May walked in and took the booth adjacent to B’s. The handler’s shoulder was inches from hers, but he ignored her as he pretended to peruse the menu. B could see them in the window reflection. She could see the way not-May leaned in when the handler talked, and she could hear the handler sweet-talking her as they made small talk.

Rhonda, the overenthusiastic server (who had lied about the chicken), came up to the seated pair. “You like fried chicken? Ours is the best in the county.”

“Oh, I-I'm not sure. I -- I guess I need another minute.” Not-May was unsure; still, the glasses did little to cover the scar on her face. The scar where the real May had electrocuted her. Not-May may be a handler, but that didn’t mean B trusted her. Both of them had been vague when she had asked about Dolokhov, which meant one of two things: one, they didn’t know where he was and were covering, or two, they knew where he was and were lying to her. Neither was a pleasant option, but number two was what B had come to expect.

“Of course.” Rhonda, as chipper as ever, turned to the handler. “And what about you, handsome?”

The handler closed the menu, “Think I'll try the pumpkin pancakes.” Ew, that sounded unpleasant. Why did Americans have to stick pumpkins in everything? B sipped on her soda.

“How about I grab you some pecan syrup while your friend makes up her mind?” Rhonda left, leaving the two handlers alone, again.

“Hmm. Pumpkin pancakes. For dinner?” It was sickening, really. Not-May was so entranced by her newfound freedom that she let the handler’s syrupy sentences guide her further. B now understood why the handler didn’t want to let her make not-May comply. He could do it himself, and he was enjoying it.

The handler’s voice turned casual, “Did you not hear what she said about the pecan syrup?”

“Well, you are just full of surprises.”

“Hey, I tried being the meat-and-potatoes guy.”

“Well, I didn't know that guy, but... The guy sitting across from me isn't so bad.”

“Says the girl who saved my ass back in Puerto Rico, nursed me back to health...” A bit excessive, really; he was laying it on thick, maybe too thick. Not-May must have never been trained for honeytrap ops, because this was seduction 101 right here.

“Well, what else was I going to do? ”Or maybe she had been, and was playing her own angle here. From what B had observed, the handler didn’t have the best taste in women. The last one he had tried to pursue through heroic acts of service had shot him and left him for dead in a house crawling with HYDRA agents, not-May included. “After Whitehall was killed, I was... Just...Lost.” B shuddered to think what it would be like without a handler, without a guiding hand helping her through life.

The target was moving, picking up his things. “Then I guess we're both lucky you found me.” B tipped her shoulder back until it grazed the handler’s. “Looks like we're a go. I was really looking forward to those pancakes.”

Not-May rose to her feet as the handler threw some bills down on the table, drawing guns. “All right! Everybody on the ground now!” B followed suit, and soon the whole room was filled with screaming and cowering patrons and one shaken-up Rhonda.

The handler held up his hands in a placating gesture, as if that would help diffuse the situation. “Do as she says, and nobody gets hurt.” He turned to Rhonda, who was shaking like a leaf where she stood. “Don't worry, Rhonda. Everything's gonna be just fine. Even left you a tip.”

The target was lying down in his booth. He pulled out his wallet, quickly setting it down on the table before putting his hands back up. “Please, just take it. There's over $200 in there.”

“Put that away. You're coming with us.” Not-May said, her gun never wavering.

“Why?”

Not-May whipped her glasses off in a move that was meant to be more intimidating than it was. “You're gonna fix my face.”

They hauled the target out of the diner and into the waiting truck. B got the seat in the back, next to the cowering man. He tried begging, so B hit him with her best Asset-face, which shut him up.

They made their way back to the hotel. The handler made B stand guard as the target worked on not-May’s face. B could hear the machines whirring as he fixed the mask, but the handler had made sure she couldn’t hear their conversation. The handler opened the door, once they were done, and the target stepped through, coming face-to-face with B.

“Marya, wouldn’t you be a doll—” B cringed, “—and show the doctor back home?” He didn’t need to give her the look that said: make sure he doesn’t talk. B grabbed the man by the arm, leading him through the back entrance of the hotel, down into the alley.

The target shifted, “Where’s your car?”

“Right here.” B grabbed a box of cleaning supplies, which covered where they had stashed the car, opening the back door for the target. He got in, not noticing that B hadn’t cleared away the boxes in front of the car, as she would have if she intended to drive away. “Let me just get the engine started,” B said, as she sucked in a deep breath before pressing the button right next to the keys.

Cloudy gas began to fill the car. “Having engine troubles?” The doctor quipped, before doubling over, hacking. “The fuck—” He spluttered before falling unconscious. B waited until he was dead before rolling down the car windows and stepping out. Once she was a safe distance from the car, she released the air in her lungs and took several short breaths.

She disposed of the doctor’s body in a dumpster three blocks from the hotel, using back alleys to avoid being spotted by bystanders. Again, she had to pat herself on the back. She was doing good work.

B met the handler in front of their hotel, he nodded, and they made their way to the actual car, which was parked in the parking lot.

B didn’t ask where they were going, but the handler decided it was best to inform her. “We’re going to get our friends some clothes, help her get some closure.” B wasn’t sure if not-May knew she was going to get closure, yet. “Talk to me, you’re awfully quiet.”

B cleared her throat. Assets did not talk unless they needed to, and even then, they preferred short responses; long, winding sentences were often a warning sign that their compliance was not where it was supposed to be. “I’m trying not to blow our cover.”

“You’re doing a good job, but this next part is going to be delicate.” B was in the worst place for delicate, right now. Stage five was for ops that involved setting up a sniper rifle and shooting a target thousands of meters away, it was for breaking in and stealing something, or killing someone. Stage five was not for squishy-feely long-term operations. “I like Agent 33 very much, and I want her to find closure.”

“And how are you going to do that?” B ground out, her teeth like a cage keeping the words in.

“Don’t worry about it,” The handler said as they pulled into the parking lot by the strip mall. “I’ve got it all figured out.”

They made their way into a wannabe-preppy boutique, the type middle-aged WASP moms would frequent. The handler grabbed B by the hand, leading her through the doors into the cool, air-conditioned space. He nudged her, “Take a look,” He prompted, and so B did. She didn’t actually pick anything out, but rather let the handler find what he was looking for.

The lady at the checkout let her eyes roam over the handler, and he, in response, wrapped an arm around B, pressing a kiss into her hair. The woman was about forty, with badly dyed blonde hair and a blouse that cut way too low on her tanned bosom. B tried her best to look annoyed as the woman huffed her way through scanning their items.

The handler pretended to whisper something into B’s ear, ending it with a “Giggle like I just said something funny about the lady,” before looking out at where their car was parked, never letting his hand leave B’s hip. The cashier rolled her eyes as the handler swiped his card and picked up the garment bags where the woman had set them down.

They returned two hours later. Not-May was in the bathroom, so B went over to the windows, keeping an eye out on the street. The handler set down the garment bags on the bed, taking his jacket off. B shook any pretense of the scene they had played in the store off, returning her face to a stoic mask.

“A little emotion wouldn’t kill you.” The handler whispered. “Give me some annoyed indifference, if nothing else.” So B did. The handler set down a manila envelope he had gotten earlier, before the doctor. B wasn’t sure what was in it, but the handler had told her it wasn’t for her, so she didn’t bother worrying about it.

Not-May had heard them come in, “Have a seat. I'll be right in.” B knew she meant the handler. Not-May had been nothing but cold to her the entire time.

The handler took a seat. “Pumpkin pancakes,” he said incredulously, noticing the plate on the table. The talons of hunger scraped down B’s torso, but she kept her hands to herself until the handler offered her a bite, which she managed to hook off the fork with her teeth without making eye contact.

Not-May, except for the fact that she wasn’t not-May anymore, now she was not-Skye, made her way from the bathroom. “When you left, it got me thinking...” She said, her voice sultry. The bite of pumpkin pancake turned sour in B’s stomach. The handler hadn’t noticed the change of face yet. “What do I have to offer that you would even want?” She began rubbing his shoulders.

“Hmm.” The handler moaned, leaning back and closing his eyes as not-May-not-Skye continued massaging his shoulders. The agent, as B was not choosing to call her, for the sake of brevity, shot B a dirty look, leaning her head toward the bathroom. B was happy to oblige. She didn’t need to see this. The handler shot her a sad look as she left the room, the sadness quickly turning into surprise as he noticed the agent’s face for the first time

“Surprise.” B may have been out of earshot, but she could still hear. She dry-heaved into the toilet several times.

The smooching noises stopped. “Wait. Wait. What are you doing?”

“I'm giving you what you want.” The agent’s voice hadn’t changed; she still sounded like May, damn, that was creepy.

“You're wrong.”

“We both know that's not true.”

“You took Skye off that S.H.I.E.L.D. plane for a reason.”

“I made her a promise.”

“You don't have to pretend. I saw the way you looked at her.”

The handler’s voice shook. He had stood up; he was farther away from the bathroom now. “And you also picked me up from the floor after she shot me. Whatever I may have thought there was between me and Skye, she made it pretty clear the feeling wasn't mutual.” His voice cracked, “I'm not insane.”

“Uh, I'm...Sorry.” The same shake had crept into the agent’s voice. So it hadn’t been a honeytrap, at least not on the agent’s side. The handler, it remained to be seen. “Please, you have to forgive me. This is so stupid.”

They both moved further away, but still close enough to be in B’s earshot, unfortunately. “It's okay.” The handler sighed, his voice regaining that softness that he only used when he was lying or when he wanted something.

“I -- I ju-- I thought that if... I looked like her, then maybe... Maybe there's a chance we could be together.” To the untrained ear, that may have seemed like the lead-in to calculated seduction, but B could hear the sincerity in the agent’s voice.

“Well, maybe we could. But not as Skye or May. No. It has to be with you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“There is no me. Whoever I was before is just gone!” Something glass shattered, a beat, “Whitehall wiped her all away.” They moved over to the bed*.* B could tell by the way the air let out of the mattress in a soft whoosh as one of them sat down. She debated filling the bathtub and drowning herself in it if only to escape the sounds that were surely coming next. Thankfully, the handler sat down (or remained standing) somewhere that wasn’t the bed.

“I know what you’re going through. My family did a number on me --” Not this again. “Stripped me down, left me...Hollow. I was a shell. So, when someone finally did come along and offered to build me back up, I didn't resist...” A shaky breath, all a part of the routine. “Even though what he really did was make me a killer.” And a manipulator, a damn good one too. Or maybe he was just hot.

“But you seem so well-adjusted.”

“It was a long road. Took getting locked up to give me some perspective. But then I paid my family a visit. They were surprised to see me, but I think that eventually, we were able to...Dig in, really...Express our feelings.”

“That's it?”

“I haven't looked back since.” Now the handler sat on the bed. B braced herself, sure, now would be a strange time to— but what did she know? “You are the only one who can find yourself. But maybe...” Paper rustled, “...This will help.”

“What is it?”

“Closure.”

“Sunil Bakshi?” Rage sent the agent’s voice shaking all over again.

“He's in Air Force custody under a guy named Talbot. I was thinking you and I should drop by and say hello.”

“Bakshi was the one who dragged me from my safe house and prepped me for Whitehall.”

“Which is why you need a face-to-face -- To get all this out. Let him know how you really feel.”

“I...I-I -- I'm sorry. I just -- I can't --”

“Hey. It's okay. We'll do this together. I'll be there every step of the way.”

“Okay.” The agent breathed.

“Okay.”

“But how? You said he's in Air Force custody.”

“Got that all worked out.” The handler stood up again, rustling around in the bags he and B brought back from their trip. “First...” He pulled something out, presumably handing it over to the agent, “You are gonna need this.”