Serenade in Blue

10

As the five were being escorted in a van, Steve said, "It was him. He looked right at me, Bucky and Bea like he didn't even know us."

"How's that even possible?" Sam wondered. "It was like 70 years ago."

"Zola," Bucky replied grimly. "Phillip's and my whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Phillip survive the fall."

Bea sniffled and snapped her head back, trying not to cry.

"None of that's your fault, Steve, Bucky, Bea," Natasha told them.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky and Phillip," Steve said.

Bucky glanced at his friend and immediately put pressure to her wound.

Sam noticed how badly Bea was bleeding from her shoulder and looked at the guards and said, "We need to get a doctor here. We don't put pressure on that wound, more than Bucky's putting on, she's gonna bleed out here in the truck." Suddenly, one of the guards pulled out an electric rod and neutralized the other guard and knocked him out. The guard was revealed to be Hill as she took off her helmet.

"Ah. That thing was squeezing my brain," Hill said. Sam looked at her in confusion and Hill asked Steve, "Who's this guy?"

Rumlow's crew stopped their vehicles and got out.

"Five holes. Start digging," Rumlow ordered. They went over to the van holding Steve, Sam, Bucky, Bea and Natasha and as they opened the door, they found it empty with one of the guards left unconscious and massive burnt hole on the car floor.

---

Hill had taken the five to a secret facility. A man ran toward them.

Hill, referring to Bea's wound, said, "GSW. She's lost at least a pint."

"Maybe two," Sam and Bucky added.

"Let me take her," the doctor said.

"She'll want to see him first," Hill replied, taking them to Fury who was alive and lying in bed. The five looked at him in shock.

"About damn time," Fury said.

Later, as Bea's wound was being treated, Fury continued. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache."

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the doctor added.

"Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open, your heart stopped," Natasha said.

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked. "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Hill replied.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury reasoned. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

---

Inside a bank vault, the HYDRA agents fixed Phillip's metal arm and as they did so, he had a brief flashback to his old life as he was recovered by Zola and the HYDRA agents.

"Lieutenant Barnes..." Dr. Zola called and Phillip had a flashback to falling off the train at the edge of the mountain with Steve and Bucky trying to save him.

"Phillip, no!" Steve and Bucky cried.

Phillip flashed to after he was picked up by HYDRA agents.

He had a brief flashback to a smiling Bea as he danced with her.

"The procedure has already started," Dr. Zola said as he and the HYDRA agent amputated his left arm and replaced it with the metal arm. "You are to be the new face of HYDRA." He said to his men, "Put him on ice." Phillip was being frozen.

He came back to the present and knocked over the HYDRA agent fixing his arm.

Rollins pointed his gun at Phillip to stop him from attacking any further. Pierce entered the bank vault Phillip was being held in.

"Sir, he's... he's unstable," the first scientist said. "Erratic." Pierce was followed by Rumlow and some other HYDRA agents and went over to Phillip.

"Mission report," Pierce ordered, but Phillip looked at him blankly and didn't respond. "Mission report, now." Pierce moved closer to Phillip and struck him hard in the face.

"The men and woman on the bridge..." Phillip began as he had a flashback to Steve, Bea and Bucky calling him by name. "Who were they?"

"You met them earlier this week on another assignment."

"I knew them," Phillip said as Pierce sat in front of him. "She... I think I loved her."

"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."

"But I knew them. One looked like me and she... I loved, I think I love her."

Pierce turned to the scientists. "Prep him."

"He's been out of cryo-freeze for too long," the first scientist informed.

"Then wipe him and start over."

The scientists strapped Phillip in his chair, and placed a teeth shield in his mouth as they began the process of wiping his brain with Phillip screaming in pain.