𝗗𝗜𝗚𝗜𝗧𝗔𝗟 𝗦𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘

Isabell

Isabell Hansen is immortal.

Isabell Hansen is seven.

Isabell Hansen is fucked.

She has been fucked for quite some time, in fact, but one sunny day in early March, as both SHIELD and HYDRA come crashing to the ground, she is especially fucked. The sort of fucked that you don't get out of very easily.

HYDRA is going. HYDRA is gone. HYDRA enslaved, tortured and experimented on her for her entire life. She should be happy to watch them fall. Instead, Isabell sits and bites her nails. Why does she suddenly feel so lost?

She is sitting on a bench outside the SHIELD building, listening to the complete chaos going on around her and trying not to cry. She'd been instructed not to step in too much for this mission. Her only job, really, is to shadow The Winter Soldier, but there's only one target for him today. Besides, the rest of underground HYDRA is working on everything else. She's only had to wipe out a few people so far, maybe three or four. Blood smears her shoes.

However, she's done much worse. For today, she's a 'just in case' precaution.

Isabell doesn't know how to feel about that, either.

She's spent the past three years of her life trailing along beside The Winter Soldier, carefully picking people out of life like the Grim Reaper. He wipes out his targets, she follows behind and cleans up any mistakes.

"Someone to slip through and tie up any loose ends," Isabell once heard a doctor say. "A miner's canary, if you will."

A miner's canary. Killing any witnesses somehow missed and monitoring the path ahead for them. Ensuring that everything goes smoothly. That is Isabell's job. A companion, some sort of loyal servant to The Winter Soldier.

Only in his rare moments of full consciousness does she get to be James' friend.

He didn't remember her, the first time they deactivated him. Not properly, anyhow. He just stared at her, gaping and mumbling as he tried to drag her face from the murky depths of his memory.

"You, y-you, you're my-" He had stuttered. "You're the girl."

She still doesn't know what he meant by that. They have to remind him of who she is every time they reactivate him, instructing that she is a companion rather than a target, but he understands. And these days, although he is still constantly out-of-it when he comes around, he finally recognises her properly. At least he remembers her name.

Isabell knows, of course, that many experiences they have shared are now one-sided. James may never remember how many people they have killed together, how many times she has saved his life, dragged him back to base, stitched up bullet wounds on the side of his chest. Maybe that's a good thing, though. He doesn't need any more trauma, and she is perfectly capable of carrying the load for both of them.

Besides, they have their proper special memories.

Moments of freedom, locked in a cell together or curled up in a medical camp, awaiting further instructions. She holds his hand and he tells her it's OK, and then HYDRA rips them apart again.

Those minutes are all they have. In those minutes, he has gone from 'Soldier' to 'Jamie', and she from 'Girl' to 'Iza.' He has taught her quick games, she has sobbed against his shoulder and together, they have woven a fragile, precious friendship.

Right now, however, Isabell is terrified.

She does not know how to activate The Winter Soldier, and because of that, she cannot deactivate him either. The only people who can do that are either dead or about to be imprisoned, and if she was the bring The Soldier to them, they'd lock him up, too.