《 It's Been A While 》Steve Rogers X Reader

~ Chapter 38 ~

The second, tinier monitor next to the pixels face showed the face of Armin Zola. His mug shot.

"You know this thing?" Natasha asked me as I walked around the monitor.

"Armin Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years," I explain, walking behind the monitor. There was no plausible way that Zola was inside of that machine.

"First correction, I am Swiss."

Quite snarky for a machine.

"Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972, I recieved a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks."

"So all this is you?" Natasha states more than she asks.

" 'All this' is my brain."

"How'd you get here?" I ask, wanting to get to the bottom of this and report to y/n.

"Invited." I look to Natasha for an explanation, seeing as she's been involved with S.H.I.E.L.D longer than I have.

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II, S.H.I.E.L.D recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"They though I could help their cause," Zola continues. "I also helped my own."

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," I blurt out. I was sure of it. There was no way on God's green earth that HYDRA was still operating.

"Cut off one head," the screen changed to the Red Skull logo. "Two more shall take its place."

"Prove it," I challeneged. There was no way HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D are even remotely connected.

"Accessing archive," Zola spoke as the monitors next to his face started flickering through files, and a man's face with the Nazi flag behind him showed up on one of them.

"HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom." As Zola spoke, the screen changed and presented Natasha and I the pictures to go along with his story.

"What we did not realize is that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much," I watched as I saw myself fighting on the black and white screen.

"Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D was founded and I was recurited." Peggy, Howard, and Zola flash on the screen. I can feel my temper rising.

"The new HYDRA grew a beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D." I clenched my fists and my brows furrowed. Natasha slowly walked next to me to watch the screen with a look of disbelief.

"For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate," the screen flashed with tragedies that I had no knowledge of, but still felt resentment towards whoever was responsible.

"History was changed," the screen then showed blurred and low quality pictures of the assassin with the metal arm. The Winter Soldier with a Soviet star.

"That's impossible, S.H.I.E.L.D would've stopped you," Natasha speaks up. I can tell she is getting restless as she takes in the news. I stay silent, anger slowly boiling inside me. My nails were digging into my palm.

"Accidents will happen." Zola showed a newspaper headline about Howard's death, then Fury's. They were both intentional.

"HYDRA created a world so chaotic that its finally ready to sacrifice their freedom, to gain their security." The screen flashed camera footages and satellites. Satellites? Project Insight...