The Blood Phoenix 6: A Captain America: The Winter Soldier Fanfiction

Chapter 7: Alexander Pierce

'Agent Lehnsherr, nice to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you since New York. The name's Alexander Pierce.'

'Please. Just call me Adelaide.' Pierce and I entered a spacious office that looked out on the Washington D.C. skyline. 'Lovely office, Mr. Pierce.'

'Just call me Alexander. I assume you know why I wanted to speak with you, with your telepathy and all.'

'Yes... a little.'

'Why was Fury in your apartment? The one that you currently share with Captain Rogers?'

'I don't know. All I know was that there was an incident.'

'What kind of incident?'

'I don't know.'

'You're certainly just as tight-lipped as Captain Rogers. Tell me... you know the Winter Soldier, don't you?'

'A little, yes. But why?'

'Just curious. That's all. Your past is a great deal messier than I thought. I'm sorry if SHIELD has made your transition to society since New York a little less easier than Nick intended.'

'Thank you, but in all honesty, Alexander, the transition has been smoother than I thought. Settling in with Steve has been... satisfactory for my situation, given that I was homeless following my rescue from Russia.'

'Why was he there?'

'Like I said, I don't know his reasoning for being in our apartment at the time that he was. I also have no idea who the shooter was. He looked familiar, but I couldn't place it.'

'Did Director Fury tell you anything before he died?'

'He told Steve and I to not trust anyone. With all due respect, I don't exactly trust you, sir.' He went to the window.

'I'm sorry. It must have been a hard loss.'

'It was, Mr. Pierce. More than you could imagine.' I stood and went to the door, but when I came to the doorknob, I stopped and turned around. 'By the way, Mr. Pierce, how do you know about my past?'

'SHIELD has multiple files on you, many of which are encrypted. Nick only knew how to access them... and so did I. Only the Alpha Level members of SHIELD have access to your files and to files such as Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers' files. Now I'm going to ask one last time: Why was Fury in your apartment?'

'For the last, Alexander Pierce, I don't know. I don't know who would get their hands dirty enough to go after him. Maybe the remnants of HYDRA, but Steve is adamant that HYDRA died with the Red Skull in 1945.'

'And yet you wake up to a world where HYDRA does still exist. Lehnsherr, someone murdered my friend and I'm going to find out who. I told Captain Rogers that if anyone gets in my way, they're going to regret it. Anyone, including you and Rogers. Am I understood?'

'You're crystal clear, sir.'

'Thank you.' I nodded curtly and left the room, going to the elevators.

'Ground floor.'

'Confirmed. Agent Adelaide Lehnsherr.' Just then, several STRIKE agents entered the elevator, followed by Steve.

'Hey Steve,' I whispered. He squeezed my hand gently.

'Operations Control,' one of the agents said.

'Confirmed.' We went down another few levels and then the elevator stopped again.

'Forensics,' Brock Rumlow said, walking in with another handful of agents.

'Confirmed.'

'Cap, Lehnsherr.'

'Rumlow,' we said in unison. On the way down, I could tell something wasn't right. Upon a quick telepathic reading, each and every man in this elevator, except Steve and I, were from STRIKE and were here to kill. Just then Rumlow spoke.

'Evidence Response found some fibres on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac team ready?'

'No. Let's wait and see what it is first,' Steve replied.

'Right.' Then the elevator stopped and more STRIKE agents came in.

'Administrations Level,' one STRIKE agent said.

'Confirmed,' the robotic A.I. voice replied.

'Excuse me,' one of the agents said, pushing gently past me. I bumped a little against Steve, but he didn't seem to mind.

'I'm sorry about what happened with Fury,' Rumlow spoke. 'It's messed up, what happened to him.'

'Thank you,' I said softly. The elevator stopped again and this time, my heart rate, along with my suspicions about why there were so many agents in one elevator began to rise. More agents entered.

'Records,' another agent said.

'Confirmed,' the A.I. replied. There was a lull of silence in the elevator. Then I spoke.

'Before we get started... does anyone want to get out?' That was it. In a moment, Rumlow launched himself towards me with a knife. I blocked it, but managed to earn a small gash in the side for my efforts. Disarming him, I went for another agent, who attempted to zap me with a small knife-like thing. It hit me multiple times. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to do, but boy, oh boy, did it hurt like hell. I fought several agents alongside Steve. When all the agents were knocked down, the only one who remained was Rumlow... and he had me in his grasp, with a knife to my throat.

'You move, and she dies.'

'Not today, Rumlow!' I kicked his shin with my foot, then disarmed him of the knife again. He went for Steve. After a while, he stood over Rumlow, as he was knocked out cold with his shield.

'It kinda feels personal,' Steve snapped, breaking something off of his shield. Then, pressing the emergency stopping button, the elevator stopped. Steve opened the doors forcefully, just as a team of SHIELD agents came running up a set of stairs.

'Drop the shield and put your hands behind your head, both of you! Give it up, Rogers, Lehnsherr! Get that door open! You have nowhere to go!' I looked at Steve. Looking at me, he grabbed me around the waist, ran from the other side of the elevator and smashed directly into the window opposite. We both went flying down multiple floors, Steve's shield right in front of us for protection. Smashing through another glass window, we fell down on ground floor, right in front of a bunch of agents. The shield cushioned the blow massively. I rolled off of it and Steve, grimacing. He and I both got up and ran for the garage.

The bike sped through the gap in the door. I assumed that they were trying to shut down the bridge so we couldn't escape, but that wasn't an option, now that we were on the bridge. Then a quinjet appeared in front of us.

'Stand down, Rogers, Lehnsherr! Repeat, stand down!' a voice yelled out over the intercom of the plane. Of course, we didn't listen. Smashing up the plane with Steve's help, we vanished from SHIELD headquarters.

'Eyes here,' Agent Sitwell spoke loudly. 'Whatever your op is, bury it. This is Level One. Contact DOT. All traffic lights in the district go red. Shut all runways at BWI, IAD and Reagan. All security cameras in the city go through this monitor right here. Scan all open sources, phones, computers, PDAs, whatever. If someone tweets about this guy, I want to know about it.' Agent 13, or Sharon, stepped forward.

'With all due respect, if SHIELD is conducting a manhunt for Captain America and Adelaide Lehnsherr, we deserve to know why.'

'Because they lied to us,' Alexander Pierce spoke, coming into the room. 'Captain Rogers and Lehnsherr have information about the death of Director Fury. They refused to share it. As difficult as that is to accept, Rogers and Lehnsherr are fugitives from SHIELD.'