fire and ice ⟶ 𝐁. 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒 ✔︎

eleven

February 17th, 1946

𝘼𝙐𝙍𝙊𝙍𝘼 𝙁𝙀𝙇𝙏 𝙇𝙄𝙆𝙀 𝙎𝙃𝙀 𝙎𝙉𝘼𝙋𝙋𝙀𝘿 over a thousand necks in her training. Every morning she'd fight a new person killing them within minutes and starting over. She felt nothing, though. In her head was the only mission to kill to get to the problem, it was stuck there.

"Again!" Her superior yelled from behind.

Aurora quickly assembled the Glock in front of her, putting the pieces to where they belonged and adding the bullets, shooting the paper targets in nearly seconds. She dismounted the gun back into pieces, stepping away.  Over time, she grew around her senses. With the serum in her bloodstream, she had super senses and was practically immortal with her super-strength.

"Again!" Superior Adrian yelled, making Aurora continue to assemble the gun again. When she shot at the targets, a hand crossed her back, making Aurora sharply turn and face the gun directly in between her superior's eyes.

He smiled highly, "you are getting well, little one."

Aurora nodded, eyeing the floor. Adrian brushed his finger again her bare shoulder, running it down to her ribs. "You truly are fascinating," he bit his lip.

"We shall continue for your upcoming mission, it's so soon but frankly it would be wrong not to get out there." Soon his fingers traced against Aurora's sweatpants, she only stood still in moments like these, letting him have the authority.

Aurora blinked slowly, after being dismissed by the superior her and a guard walked down the hall. They turned the corner to see another Asset, a male and a different guard. Their two eyes met and Aurora witness the familiar blue, she looked even further to the silver arm with a single red star. An alarming chill when down her spine, why did that happen? The woman brushed it off and followed in the guard's step back to her cell.

When Aurora arrived, she slid down the wall onto her cot. She rested her head on the rough brinks and simply breathed, it wasn't something she did on the regular. She barely had any time to rest due to HYDRA drilling into her head on how to spy and to deceive. But if she did, she would imagine herself outside of these dark walls. In this instance, the assassin stared at the ceiling. Watching the world above her change while she'd watch from her spot, she could barely the last day she was ever a free woman.

Soon before she knew it, the morning came and that meant another day of training for Aurora. She sat on her cot, crushing bugs underneath her, the only thing giving her some type of enjoyment.

The cell door opened and her superior walked, "Malysh, kak my segodnya utrom?" His mouth turned into a grin, focused on the assassin. Little one, how are we this morning?

"Gotov k moyey missii, nachal'nik."Ready for my mission, Superior.

Adrian sucked in his teeth, "we will have to postpone for the moment." Aurora couldn't believe this, he promised soon and he lied. But she wasn't surprised, HYDRA covered up thousands of lies and focused on the greater things such as destruction.

"Ty obeshchal!" She screamed, soon she felt to the sting of Adrian's hand striking across her cheek. He pulled her back on the bot and wrapped his hands around her throat, fuming with anger. She laid there with dead eyes,  not even scared because what more could HYDRA do? They already stripped her sparkling personality, her ability to love any and everything, the memories of her friends and family, and the chance of ever having children. You promised!

The superior let go of his grip and adjusted himself, his face stricter and colder. "You have been designed for something greater than a mission, little one," his voice chipper.  "We chose you to first learn the art to become an assassin, but that is not your task. You will become the brightest star to defeat our enemies, little one," Adrian stroke the woman's cheek. Aurora eyed the dirty floor, "do you understand?"

She nodded, "yes, Superior."

They all arrived in a large laboratory filled with scientists and guards. One of them pushed the woman onto a cold metal table, Aurora looked directly at the ceiling, not moving as her arms and legs tied up in tight. Adrian stood in her view, a crooked smirk on his lips. "This will make you better, stronger, powerful," he stroked her hair as a scientist came up next to her with a vile filled with an orange substance. "And if it doesn't, we'll move on from here." He backed away and Aurora looked back to the ceiling, they connected her to a heart monitor with wires all around her.

They injected the serum into her forearm, backing away. As soon as it made its way through her bloodstream it felt like it was burning her entire body.

Sweat and tears trickled down from the extreme heat swimming through her, the serum was cutting herself up from the inside. She wanted all of this to stop, her brain was becoming a liquified mess. Aurora shook violently, thrashing around on the table but her hands were tied. The serum had made its way up to her neck burning everything that it touched, the endless pain was tearing her up.

Her heart monitor was rapidly increasing every moment she laid on the table, she would scream louder with every intent to call for help. But no one was coming to save her. The pain was so unbearable that it took everything not to break out of the restraints. But she laid there, giving up because she grew too tired to fight and cry anymore.

But then, Aurora's skin started to glow. Radiating orange and yellow as the serum was truly doing its job, all of the men in the room watched. Aurora's scream hit a frequency, making the lights and glass around shatter around her. The scientists and leaders began to panic as the trial started to go wrong.

Then the monitor flatlined and Aurora stopped her screaming and seizing on the table.

The beloved girl was dead.

The experiment killed a girl that had no right to be in this situation. She was a housewife from Brooklyn, waiting for her husband to return from the war only to be dead as well as she was right now. HYDRA was an exhausting place to be in and they threw her in and grew her from nothing, and now they lost their greatest asset.

Everyone groaned as they eyed the lifeless woman in the middle of the room. "What are we going to do now?" A scientist said, looking up to the man in charge of keeping Aurora alive.

"We have no choice but to start again," Adrian rebutted. He slowly approached the table to examine the woman, staring into her cold brown eyes. In his and HYDRA's eyes, Aurora Barnes lived up to their expectations and she was just getting started. "May she rest in peace," Adrian closed her eyelids and backed away.

"Time of death, five thirty-three."