'You think it's a trap?' Skye frowned.
'No,' I said, but I didn't like the absolution of it. I couldn't be sure, and I didn't trust myself to know. Even now, as new memories kept rising to the surface, I was afraid of stumbling across something I should've seen before. 'Maybe. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it, and yet it seems like the Chairman was expecting us, decided to vacate early. The Baron is usually here —'
'The Baron?' Fitz repeated, looking alarmed. 'As in, Baron Von Strucker?'
'Yeah? You know him?'
Fitz' response was a shudder. 'His reputation. He's sadistic, enjoys human experimentation. Thinks himself some sort of visionary. He's been on SHIELD's most wanted list for years, but we could never find him. You're saying he's been operating here this whole time?'
'From what I can remember,' I could only shrug. 'Sure sounds like him, though.'
'Well, he's definitely gone, then,' Fitz sighed, his shoulders drooping a little. He just shook his head. 'But if you're right, if they knew we were coming, then how did they found out? Who told them? This wasn't even a sanctioned mission.'
'Maybe we're predictable,' Skye offered. 'I mean, Coulson already knew what we wanted to do. I'm sure the Chairman knew SHIELD would come for our agents at some point. And maybe he knew how close Mia was to the twins, how relentless she'd be to get them back. Who knows?'
It was a good point, even if I didn't like it. Predictable? The words made me cringe. I couldn't stand the idea. I wanted to be better than that.
'I'm still looking for them.' I said, heading out the other exit. 'I'm going upstairs. If I'm not back in ten minutes —'
'We'll come after you.' Fitz said, his eyes sharp, like he knew what I was going to say next. Challenging me to contradict him.
I paused, smiled a little. 'Try not to get shot.'
Fighting Wanda and Pietro gets harder. I didn't want to hurt them. But I didn't have a choice.
When he was close enough to strike, Pietro whispered to me. My Sokovian was getting better. He told me only to defeat one of them. That way we all live.
It's almost treason.
But I didn't care.
It wouldn't be until later would I realize how stupid it was of me to split up from the group.
But I was blinded by the urgency of the moment, and the trust of my own memory, as shoddy as it was. Extremis soldiers were the one thing I was terrified of encountering here, but at this point it seemed pretty clear they were no longer at the Crucible.
As I made my way up the first floor steps, it occurred to me how strange it was to be in the Crucible without seeing Brandt, Savin, or the other Extremis soldiers. They were such a constant element in my memories here that it almost seemed wrong that they were gone. I knew I should be relieved, though. Brandt and Savin were dead. I had nothing to worry about.
The steps were rough going up. The floor shook beneath me. A deep rumble and boom sounded from somewhere inside the bunker, and I raised my shield just in time to cover my head from falling stone and debris.
It nearly toppled me backwards down the steps, but I caught myself in time and pushed onwards.
I took out three more KGB agents on the way up — I was in the middle of reloading the Night-Night gun when I stepped into the first floor hallway, and came face to face with a stampede of nearly a dozen guards, charging straight for me.
Caught off guard, I raised my shield, ducked my head. I closed my eyes, ready for impact.
It never came.
The agents just ran past me.
I stumbled a little bit, putting too much weight into my forward foot. I turned, watching the agents flee, calling out in terror down the steps behind me.
What the hell was going on?
I shoved past the doors and found myself running down another long hallway. I didn't remember this part very well — maybe I didn't come here very often back when I was still under Crucible control.
As I ran, the hall continued to shudder and shake. Dust and plaster fell from the ceiling. Cracks ruptured up support columns. More distant booms. It sounded like explosions.
There was something about these walls, though. Their white paint. The too-bright lights…
Turning a corner, I spotted a double-wide doorway, and a sign painted next to it. MASTER OPERATING THEATER.
I didn't hesitate before bursting in.
The white operating room. The one I woke up in six months ago.
The operating tables were empty. All that remained was a crash cart, a dialysis machine, and an old computer monitor.
'You're too late, Mädchen.'
I whirled around. In the observation room, behind the glass, stood Baron Von Strucker.
In his hands, he held the Sceptre.
One day, I remembered New York.
I remembered my name.
Mia.
I remembered the strange, smiling, brown-eyed boy.
Peter.
I remembered ohana.
I clung to these, desperately. I couldn't wait to tell Wanda and Pietro. They listened, enraptured, when I told them of my home.
I missed it.
They told me they miss home, too. Their parents. That they would do anything to get out of here.
They couldn't, though. They've already tried. Failure cost them dearly. Pietro was afraid that he would be separated from his sister forever.
Wanda was sure they'd kill Pietro. That they'd make her do it.
They're too afraid to try again.
Later that night, when I was alone in my cell, attempting to sleep, I realized I was not afraid.
My blood ran cold. Baron Von Strucker. Mad scientist. The man who turned me into this. Right here, standing less than ten feet away.
'My, my,' the Baron chuckled, red monocle gleaming the light of the Sceptre. It cast an odd glow in the room. His voice crackled from an unseen speaker. His eyes flicked up and down my fatigues, and he sneered. 'Don't you look...patriotic.'
'Where are they?' I demanded, taking a step forward. I didn't know where to look — at the Baron or at the Sceptre. 'Where are Wanda and Pietro?'
'Who?' the Baron blinked, frowning. Then he laughed. 'Oh, you mean the Mutant twins? I never bothered with names; a scientist must never get too attached to his projects, you know.'
I lunged forward, slammed my fist into the glass. It cracked, but didn't shatter — it was stronger than I expected.
The Baron seemed greatly amused by my attempt as he set about packing up the Sceptre, placing it in a heavy black briefcase lined with foam. 'Nice try, Mädchen, but I'm afraid I don't have time to entertain you this evening. I have an appointment and I mustn't be delayed.'
As he spoke, I turned on my heel, made for the doors. Only they wouldn't budge when I tried the handle. Heart skipping a beat, I spun around, went for the other set of doors on the opposite end of the room. Locked, too.
This was it. I knew there'd be a trap.
'Tsk, tsk,' the Baron said over the intercom. 'So impatient. You want to leave so soon? And without saying goodbye to your lovely host?'
'What?' I asked, as the lights in the room went dark. The Baron disappeared from view, and behind me the TV flickered to life. The low buzz of white noise filled the room. I stepped closer, cautious, as a face filled the screen.
The Chairman.
His face was even clearer than it was in my memories. Dark hair, cold green eyes, a clean shaven face. Sharp cheekbones, square jaw. He didn't look older than fifty. If I hadn't known any better, I'd even say he looked...normal. If I saw him in a crowd, he wouldn't have stood out much at all. He was more human than I expected.
And that made him all the more terrifying.
'Good evening, Amelia,' He said, with a small smile. That voice, the soft Russian accent, washed over me with a cloying, deceitful warmth, like the heat from unstable plutonium. He was acting as though this was a friendly chat. As though he hadn't been the cause of ever
y terrible thing in my life. 'I had hoped to see you again.'
I planned my escape.
It took months.
Despite what everyone said, escaping the Crucible wasn't impossible. I knew how it could be done. The Winter Soldier taught me to be observant — and now I knew the cameras, the controls, the patrol patterns. I had it all committed to memory.
What was left of it.
Sometimes I was lucid enough to remember who I was. Remember the plan. Remember Peter.
Sometimes too lucid. Sometimes I started to resist. Then I had to be reprogrammed. A machine that wasn't functioning correctly, a machine that had become too self-aware.
One time I was stupid. I was caught giving the twins a bit of my food. So I was locked in a cement cell, with no food and no light for a week. I didn't see Wanda or Pietro for another three.
The Crucible didn't tolerate kindness. It did not tolerate weakness.
So I had to be smarter.
'You knew I was coming,' I said, my voice hoarse. I was having trouble breathing. Exertion, realization, panic. I was stuck in this goddamn room, forced to speak to the Chairman when I could be saving the twins. There was no question that he had been planning this.
'I have eyes everywhere,' the Chairman replied with a slight nod, confirming my theory that this wasn't a recording, that we were actually speaking in real time. His head filled most of the screen. I couldn't make out much behind his head. Maybe a pale wall, or a hazy window. No indicator as to where he really was. 'I knew you were attached to the Mutants, before your escape. I'm impressed, actually, that you decided to forsake your goal of reaching home to come back here, of all places, just to save them. You can't buy that kind of loyalty, Amelia. In fact, I'd say I'm almost proud of you. If only you had devoted that loyalty to a more worthy cause.'
I tried to find any sense of hypocrisy in his face, and found none. 'Why buy loyalty when you can steal it?'
'Steal?' The Chairman frowned slightly, looking more curious than angry at the accusation. 'I think loyalty is a small price to pay for the gifts I've given you, Amelia. There are men who would give more for less. And I never took anything from you that you weren't willing to give me.'
I grit my teeth. What did that mean? Was he saying that I was somehow complacent, that I wanted to be a part of this? Unlikely. 'I don't believe you.'
'Believe what you want, but someday you'll see the truth.'
I was scanning the room again, looking for another way out. Could I try the window again? Maybe it would break if I kept striking it.
'You can escape, if you want to,' The Chairman said, as if he could read my mind. 'I'm sure you're quite capable. I anticipate it. Perhaps you're wondering why I haven't initiated your turncoat protocols yet, for that loyalty you think I've stolen.'
The tables rattled as the structure shook around me. My gaze cast about the room again, distracted, but drew back to the Chairman on those last words.
I didn't have to speak. He already knew what I was thinking.
The Chairman smiled. 'I've learned that loyalty always comes with sacrifice. And that happens to be self-preservation. You happen to have very little of it when you're under control and you tend to be aimless with no one to command you; Unfortunately if I were to bring you under at this moment, it would be unlikely you'd pull yourself out of the rubble. I'm sure you can tell already, this place is falling apart. I've asked the Baron to initiate the self-destruct sequence — there will be nothing left when those Capitalist dogs come to scuttle the wreckage.'
Well, that explained why those agents were desperate to get the hell out of Dodge. They knew that the Chairman wouldn't hesitate to crush them and anything else to cover his tracks.
'So you're letting me free,' I surmised, the words bitter on my tongue. 'So you can use me again later?'
'Precisely.' The Chairman seemed pleased that I figured it out. 'Of course, I could always leave you in the command of Von Strucker, but I don't trust anyone who prides themselves on their intelligence. He'd likely steal you for his own purposes than return you to me, and I can't have that. So yes, consider this a small mercy, Amelia. I'm letting you escape. The real question is, though, what will you do with this opportunity?'
He continued without waiting for me to answer. 'I was foolish enough to leave the Sceptre with Von Strucker, and it seems he's scarpered off with it the first chance he got. You see now why I couldn't trust him with you. You have a chance, now, to stop him. Or,' he paused, and even through the screen something sinister glittered in those eyes. 'You can save your Mutant friends. I'm afraid you won't have time to do both.'
Startled by this, I looked behind me. Indeed, the observation room was empty. The Baron had made his escape while I was distracted.
'And believe me when I say that if the Sceptre remains in his hands, then terrible things will happen in the future. Who knows what he'll do with it, where it will end up,' The Chairman continued lightly, glanced down to brush invisible dirt off his shoulder. 'Arrest him, even, hand him and the Sceptre over to SHIELD. I don't mind, truly. Become the unlikely hero, just like your predecessors. What is more important to you, Amelia? The individual, or the community?' He asked me, when I faltered, unable to move. 'Saving the world from a mad scientist with the power of the gods in his hands, or two little Mutant children, whose names no one will remember?'
I glared at him, as dust continued to fall, dusting my helmet and shoulders in white powder. Those last words dashed away any doubt I had left.
'Their names are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff,' I told him. 'Maybe I won't always remember, but you will.'
Then I slammed my fist into the TV screen.Of course the Chairman didn't tell me exactly where the twins were. Might leave me with just enough time to stop Von Strucker. Couldn't have it too easy for me, right?
The Crucible shook all around me as I tore down the halls, not bothering to check every room as rubble fell. I already had a pretty good idea where Wanda and Pietro would be, what I could remember about this place.
Yeah, I wasn't going to waste my time with Von Strucker. I knew he had the Sceptre, and I knew it was bad that he had it — but 1) I came here for Wanda and Pietro and I wasn't leaving without them. And 2) If I caught Von Strucker, that meant the Sceptre would end up in SHIELD's possession. And while I liked Skye and Fitz, I didn't trust the organization as a whole. Who knew what they'd do with it. Would they be any better than Von Strucker? It wasn't like SHIELD was known for their transparency.
But I digress. I had a pretty good idea where the twins were.
Cold Storage.
A flicker. A memory.
'Be careful, sweetheart,' Savin told me, once. I'd landed a good blow on him during a sparring match, and he had a bloody lip he licked at, sneering. 'Don't want to end up in Cold Storage, do you?'
A threat.
'Keep that up,' Brandt sneered when I broke programming for the first time. 'And the only thing you'll be good for is Cold Storage.'
I had heard my name called — one of the other scientists had the same name as me — Amelia. It had been enough to remind what I was. What I had been.
Hearing my name led to resistance, as it usually did. When they told me to obey, I didn't. When they grabbed me, I fought back. The Winter Soldier wasn't there. Brandt was.
She took great pleasure in burning that name out of me again.
Two Crucible agents appeared just as I rounded a corner. I slammed right into them.
For their part, they tried to stop me. Why, who knows. One grabbed my arm. The other elbowed me in the face. They tried to pull the shield away from me.
They were better off if they had just kept running — I wouldn't have stopped them.
As I decked the first one across the jaw, I spotted the flick of black coat disappearing through a door ahead. Von Strucker.
I threw my weight into the shield. Crushed one agent between it and the wall behind him. He gasped, winded, dropped
to the floor. A kick to the head and he was out.
Words on a screen.
I didn't know how I got so close to a computer. Why the scientists or security would trust me. But they did.
In retrospect, I'd realize they had no idea I had an affinity for coding. If they had, they wouldn't have been so careless.
I observed as the lead security officer talked a rookie through the computer mainframe. The room was wide, the far wall covered in what must have been fifty computer monitors of various sizes. Analysts operated on keyboards and switch boards, managing cameras, sensors, gate access. The entire compound could be seen from this one room. This was the fifth time I'd been in here, and now I knew where everything was.
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