Forgotten Ghost | Natasha Romanoff

Chapter 36: Buried

''Prove it,'' Steve demanded Zola for evidence of the existence of HYDRA. The fact that Katya stood a couple feet away from him was apparently not enough prove that the Nazi organization he fought in World War Two didn't go down.

There was a small moment of silence from Zola, who, if he had been real, would have had a very smug smile on his face. ''Accessing archive''

Katya had a bad feeling about this. She did some serious messed up things for HYDRA and those were not even the worst things the organization had done. Not a lot of people knew about all the things Katya had done, all the people she killed and tortured. That's not exactly something you flaunt with and tell someone over a cup of coffee. 

Fury knew, of course. He knew everything about everybody, and Katya felt better knowing he knew and gave her a second chance anyway. However, her history was not something she ever planned on sharing with Rogers. He could guess what her life looked like, but he would never know the full details.

But now, the computer might show him more things she wanted him to see. 

An image popped up on one of the smaller screens on the left, catching everyone's attention. Katya recognized the man pictured in black and white and so did Steve. 

Johann Schmidt, better known as Red Skull. A little on the nose if you asked Katya, but hey, he did have a red skull so...   

Steve took a step forward to see better and the two women followed automatically, even though Katya got nauseous at the sight of the HYDRA leader. ''HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom.'' Images with rows and rows of well-trained HYDRA soldiers filled the screen. All of them saluting their leader and ready to do some of the worst shit in history.

It changed to footage of the war. How the allied troops fought against HYDRA. Even de Captain could be seen for a couple seconds, leading his troops in his original blue costume.''What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly.''

Katya had heard this a million times before. It was the same old crap every single time. Freedom this, humanity that. It was all a little overdone to her. A little tiring. But so was HYDRA.

''After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited,'' Zola confirmed Natasha's previous statement about Project Paperclip. ''The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD.'' 

Natasha and Steve were shocked to say the least. Although they had their suspicions sometimes, it was now confirmed. HYDRA did indeed live within SHIELD for decades. And they had never seen anything. 

''For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed.''

A flash of a symbol on screen froze Katya in her spot, but it was gone so quickly that she didn't know if she had seen it correctly. The red star was hard to forget, but she hadn't seen it in a long time. 

Natasha, who stood beside her, spoke up with confidence but also a little confusion. ''That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you.'' She wanted to believe so badly that all this wasn't true. That she hadn't unknowingly been working for the enemy. That she hadn't helped sew chaos and fear. 

''Accidents will happen,'' Zola said smugly. And this was the moment Katya had feared. 

The Starks were the first to be shown on screen. The death of Howard and Maria was always believed to be an accident. A car hitting a tree on the side of the road with death as the result. Katya had always known better. That HYDRA was behind it. Or at least she suspected.