Blue Phoenix - MCU Civil War Replacement

Chapter Seventeen

I spent the next month working with Friday, Fury and Ross during the day and working on Bucky in the evening. We'd managed to track Zemo almost from as soon as he arrived in Sokovia after it fell until where we saw him when he blew up Pepper's car but it was like he turned into a ghost after that; I couldn't find him anywhere.

As I'd expected he was also the one who launched the projectile at Steve in Lagos as well and as far as I could tell Klaw was working with or for Zemo when he had Rumlow attempt to steal the biological though I still couldn't figure out his end game. He didn't need a biological weapon to hurt the Avengers, which seemed to be his goal.

Bucky on the other hand seemed to be progressing nicely. I'd used the words to activate him while running the first series of scans so I'd know where the most damage had been done and it'd worked. Reversing it was still going to take some time but I was still hopeful.

"Kenna, Director Ross is requesting permission to land." Friday says.

I check my watch and furrow my brow, it was late and he wasn't due here until the morning.

"It's okay, he can land. I'll meet him on the pad."

I walk out of my office, shutting and locking the door behind me and walk quickly towards the helipad, reaching it as the helicopter lands. I raise my hand waving as Director Ross exits the aircraft and he waves back, running over to me as the helicopter takes back off.

"Director Ross, I wasn't expecting you until morning."

"Yes, I'm sorry for the late hour but I thought you'd want to see this straight away. I hope I didn't wake you or..."

"No I was just finishing up with Sergeant Barnes. Let's go to the conference room. Friday call the senior team members please and have them meet us in the conference room."

"Yes ma'am."

I escort Ross into the conference room, everyone else making it there just after we do. I'd only asked for the senior members but they all file in, including Bucky and take chairs looking from Ross to I and back.

"I'm sorry to call you all out of bed at this time of night but Director Ross says he has some information we are going to be interested in."

"Yes, I'm sorry for the unexpected visit especially so late but Cleveland P.D. kicked a case my way and I thought you'd be interested. It took them a week to id the victim as one Vasily Karpov, formerly Russian Armed Forces as an embedded Hydra operative and that's when we got it."

He passes me a file and I open it, sitting on Tony's knee giving Ross my chair, and wince as I look at the crime scene photos.

"So he was tortured?" I ask, passing the file down the table.

"It would appear so. He was found suspended upside down with his head in sink full of water. It is unclear if the attacker got the information they were after."

"Karpov was the director of the Winter Soldier facility while I was held there. Since none of the Winter Soldier program files were included in the files my team released a while ago I think it's safe to assume it was either another Hydra agent or someone familiar with the program." I say leaning back against Tony, "I can account for my teams whereabouts for the time of the murder."

"Of course, I wasn't suggesting it was you or your team though I could understand wanting him dead, he was a horrible man by all counts."

Ross and Fury had been over several times over the last two weeks with a handful of upper agents going over the files we'd recovered from the hanger and there were plenty of files in there with Karpov's name listed on them, including the one on the deaths of Tony's parents. I certainly wouldn't be losing any sleep knowing he was dead.