The Silent Shadow || marvel

08- a new place to be from

NOW

WASHINGTON D.C. : (MAR 2014)

Everything was gone.

Svetlana Barnes stood outside of the SHIELD headquarters as it burned down in front of her eyes. She stood covered in blood as she held a gun and Zerina's stuffed rabbit in her arms. The gun hung loosely in her hand on the side of her body and the bunny tucked securely in the crook of her arm while a piece of glass jutted out of her right calf as she fought back the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes.

With her free hand, she anxiously picked at her eyelashes. She plucked them one by one and then blew each away with the same wish manifested on each one.

She didn't know what to make of the situation, everything she had ever known had just collapsed, and she had failed her mission. She wondered if that even mattered anymore as every HYDRA operative that was in charge of them in the past was most likely dead and gone.

HYDRA was finally gone and her pain and suffering would finally be put to a much-deserved end yet Svetlana felt nothing but dread. The dread bubbled deep in her stomach and invaded her mind and throat.

Without HYDRA what was she? A nine-year-old killer? A helpless little girl who had nowhere to go? All of those things were true yet she wasn't truly alone. The Winter Soldier was here somewhere. Svetlana refrained from attempting to find him though, she had already stepped in this mission enough and her only instruction was to keep her distance.

And she did...until she couldn't anymore.

She was doing her job well, she waited patiently as she watched the whole thing unfold on the jet hanger they had arrived on. That was before she was chased off the runway by a group of SHIELD agents. They had all heard stories of a little girl who went wherever The Winter Soldier went and when they saw her sitting criss-cross-apple sauce atop an ill-working helicopter as she peacefully picked at the loose skin around her nails, their minds immediately went into hero mode.

That hero mode resulted in all of their deaths and a stab wound for Svet. The story of the wound was embarrassing and she would not be telling James if he ever came back. When she jumped off the hanger and onto the glass-littered ground, she slipped in an attempt to get up and landed straight on a shard of glass.

With the topic of her father fresh on her mind, Svet decided whether to look for him or not. She didn't know what version of himself he would be- most likely The Soldier side, she reasoned with herself. Unless by some miracle he chose to spontaneously revert to James. Svetlana suddenly became even more terrified following a new realization she had made.

If HYDRA was gone, that meant the scientists who knew how to switch off The Soldier were dead too. They were the only ones that knew how to fix him, and they were gone.

Svetlana would never get her father back.

The thought made her want to take the gun she had in her hand and put it against her head right there, but many things told her not to.

If her papa ever came back he would always wonder what had happened to her, and no one would be there to say anything.

Her second reason was the disappointment she would receive from Zerina and Milo if they were there waiting for her like they promised they would be.