BANG//Marvel

II.IV.: Some things are better left unsaid...SIKE!

After a long ride the three pulled up outside an abandoned military base where the signal led them to.

"This is it?" Asked Liam and looked around.

"The file came from these coordinates." Nodded Natasha.

"So did I. This camp is where I was trained." Said Steve and stared off into space.

"Changed much?" Asked Liam in softer tone.

"A little."

"This is a dead end. Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." Frowned Natasha and Liam squinted his eyes, trying to see through the thickening darkness.

"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place." Steve said and walked towards one of the buildings. He then slammed his shield into the lock and entered.

"This is Shield." Sais Natasha as she turns on the lights.

"Maybe where it started." Mumbles Liam.

"There's Stark's father." Points out Natasha.

"Howard." Whispered Steve with nostalgia.

"Who's the girl?" This time, Steve boldly ignores her.

"If you're already working in a secret office, why do you need to hide the elevator?" The solider said and pushed away an old bookshelf. They got in and it took them to a room filled with old looking computers.

"This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient." Frowns Liam and Natasha places the flash drive into a USB port.

I N I T I A T E  S Y S T E M ?

"Y-E-S, spells yes." Natasha smiled as the computer started to crank up.

""Shall we play a game?" It's from a movie that..."

"Yeah, I saw it." Nat and Liam raised their eyebrows in surprise, but then the computer speaks. And Liam's horrified expression makes the other two shiver.

"Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984. Mills, Liam Christopher. Born 1985."

"I know that voice." Mumbled Liam in disbelief.

"It's some kind of a recording." Said Natasha with a frown.

"I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am."

"Do you know this thing?"

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years." Growled Steve.

"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain. And if your friend over here hadn't escaped, I would have had new body to walk around in too." Liam felt like throwing up when the camera above the screens focused on him, along with the stares of his companions.

"How did you get here?"

"Invited."

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value." Natasha explained with grim expression.

"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."

"Hydra died with the Red Skull." Snapped Rogers.

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

"Prove it."

"Accessing archive. Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, Shield was founded, and I was recruited. The new Hydra grew. A beautiful parasite inside Shield. For seventy years Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible, Shield would have stopped you." Shouted Natasha.

"Accidents will happen. Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, Hydra's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your Life; a zero sum." In anger, Steve punched through one of the monitors, but it didn't do anything, since Zola's face just appeared on a different one. One closest to Liam, who took few steps away.

"What's on this drive?"

"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."

"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Asked Liam, speaking for the first time.

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it." The three of them frowned at that.

"Guys, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops." Said Natasha while looking at her phone.

"Who fired it?"

"Shield."

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both of us...out of time."