Veronica Barnes: Trained to Kill

II.

     Date: 9/27/2015
     Location: Venice, Italy

          "Augen auf das Ziel, Soldat?"

"Sichern. Ist die Bombe fertig bereitgestellt werden?"

"Ja. Fahren Sie mit Töten fort."

Veronica pulled the mask off of her face and pulled the straps of her bag over her shoulders before walking out of the alleyway and down the street. Crowds of people stood and walked past, speaking Italian on the phone with their families or bosses, or stopping to tie her shoe. No one would take a second glance at the girl. She looked like any normal fifteen year old, other than the fact she was secretly carrying a bomb in her backpack and was just crouched behind a dumpster in an alleyway speaking German into an earpiece. She trained with HYDRA every day of her life. She learned how to fire a gun without flinching, change magazines quickly, and the art of knives and daggers. She learned how to shoot bow and arrow, and how to set bones and stitch wounds; remove bullets. She learned how to build and dismantle bombs, and most importantly: how to kill.

People all across the world had been killed or targeted by her. She was trained this way. When she was taken from her mother by HYDRA she was naive and young, and groomed by men from the beginning who then taught her how to kill misogynistic men just like themselves; how hypocritical. She killed men, and only men, or at least only targeted men; of course there we casualties such as people in surrounding areas. Ones with allegations of harassment against them, men who had cheated on wives who she was hired to kill as a hit-woman, and her common occurrence: men in the government system. She had assassinated governors and mayors from thousands of cities. Her alias to the public was The Angel of Death.

When she entered the building, she walked straight to the elevator and climbed inside, hitting the button to take her to the top floor where she was to plant a bomb. The elevator dinged at the top floor and she stepped out, walking forwards towards the opened door to the congressmen's office. It was empty. She moved quietly towards the phone, taking the tiny bomb out of her backpack pocket and placing it into the phone's backing and wiring. As she clicked the plastic backing onto the phone footsteps began to approach. She pulled her mask over her face, quickly ducking down and rolling across the floor towards the side wall. She placed her back against it, flattening down the best she could. A figure walked into the room, looking down at some papers, allowing Veronica to carefully slip out of the room and back into the elevator, clicking the "lobby" button.

"Mach es an," a man in her earpiece spoke to her.

She pulled her sleeve up, glancing at her tattoos and scars slightly before clicking the side button on her watch, engaging the bomb. "Es ist fertig, Chef," she spoke back in her earpiece.

The elevator came to a stop at the bottom floor, and the girl stepped out and walked through the lobby and out the front door, the building igniting into flames as she continued to walk, not looking back.

Date: 9/28/2015
Location: HYDRA's Secondary Base,
somewhere in Russia

"You did well, Trainee Barnes," her boss congratulated her.

She looked up. "You're still going to call me a trainee when I have more hits under my belt than any of the hit-men here?"

"All in good time, when you come of age at eighteen will we allow you to go by Agent rather than Trainee," he placed a hand on her back. "But, you aren't wrong that you're the best hit-man we have here."

"Call me by what I am, Boss," she spoke. "Call me hit-woman rather than man. Do not fear to admit that a girl can fight better than any of the men here, even if she is fifteen."

He nodded. "Very well. Get some sleep."

Her boss turned on his heel and marched out of the room. The second the door shut she pulled her tattoo gun out from under her bed and yanked her sleeve up. When she was little she would mark her walls with a strike for each day she was kept there, and when she was inked for her first time with a tattoo, her identification code, she began to transfer those marks to her arm; one petal for each mark. In total she had now a whole sleeve on her arm, almost to her wrist with 4,745 petals on it, each making up very intricate flowers. When she was old enough to write, one of the women who worked at HYDRA had told her that the purest form of beauty was art, and so the girl began to become creative by drawing things and painting them. When the men at the facility saw this, they turned her into the tattoo artist.

After lights out, Veronica would wait an hour or two before sneaking out of her room through an old vent under her bed and climb through until she arrived in the comms room where she would log on to watch movies or would steal books from one of the scientist's or doctor's desks. She was never once caught, which showed just how good they had trained her to be stealthy.

She clicked the computer on which opened to a ton of articles. "The Avengers to Assemble Again?", "When Will the Avengers make yet another Debut after Taking down Ultron?" Almost every article began with the word "Avengers."

Veronica slanted her eyes, clicking into another tab and hitting the search bar. "Who are the Avengers?" she asked at a small whisper, speaking as she typed the question. Soon, thousands of pictures of fires, destruction, and the same group of six with a few added others every now and then.

"The Avengers made their first ever debut while saving the island of Manhattan from Thor's deranged brother, Loki. Thor: God of Thunder, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow: a Russian female assassin, Clint Barton/Hawkey; an extremely skilled archer, Tony Stark/Iron Man: playboy genius, Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk: a genius doctor with some major anger issues, and Steve Rogers/Captain America: a WWII veteran and experiment by Howard Stark took on the God of Mischief himself Loki Laufeyson back three years ago, and the group re-assembled earlier this year to fight off Ultron, a robotic experiment gone wrong. Just before this, Rogers teamed up with Romanoff and Sam Wilson, also known as the Flacon, to find James Buchanan (Bucky) Barnes, Rogers' old friend from WWII, but there hasn't been a trace of him since they escaped their arrest. Will S.H.E.I.L.D continue to hide the truth from the public and wreck havoc upon the United States? And one more question remains; will we ever see Bucky Barnes again?"

Veronica racked her brain. She knew that name. "Bucky Barnes," she repeated under her breath. Quickly but quietly she got out of her chair and hurried over to the filing cabinets, quickly taking a hair pin from her head and picking the lock. She scanned the documents, still repeating his name under her breath. Finally, her fingers scanned over a file with his name on it and she pulled it out, sitting down at the desk and reading down the documents. It had his birthday, social security number, address...her eyes scanned the bottom. "Family members," she read. "Winnifred and George Barnes: mother and father..." she gulped slightly. "Veronica Stephanie Barnes: daughter."