Chapter Text
Sub-Level Five is a white, minimalist expanse of a room; the soulless epitome of how humanity visualized the future in the early 2000s, before the reality of climate change and mismanagement of natural resources hits even so-called first world countries hard.
This is a showroom meant to show off functional prototypes to bigwigs and investors, flashy with little actual substance.
The next floor is a row of labs, not extravagantly designed but exactly what Gabriel is looking for.
“Jackpot,” Gabriel says, peering through the nearest lab’s window.
Rows of cannibalized parts—Stark Tech, Hammer Tech, even shit derived from what was left of the Invasion of New York—lay dissected or in partly assembled, Frankenstein mishmash weapons in an attempt for more power.
Gabriel would feel some regret that they are going to blow all this up, if all of this potential alien-fighting weapons weren’t in the hands of Nazis who wanted to use this on people. Once, Gabriel could have called up Efi and Mei to get on this shit and forwarded the progress reports to Torby until the old Swede gave up on retirement again. With them, Gabriel could face an alien army with no fear.
But the people Gabriel would trust Earth with are long since laid to rest in a distant dimension.
“You all excited about this junk, viejo?” Sombra appears at his side with a holoscreen in hand. She scrolls through the inventory and dismisses it with a quick flick of her clawed fingers. “Give me a few minutes with the computers and I’ll see if there are any true gems.”
And there’s his objective, taking the information from Hydra and keeping the weapons specs to distribute to...less compromised parties. If Gabriel can’t have the best, he can at least have anyone other than Nazis playing around the new tech. He signs go ahead to Sombra and she practically skips to the first lab, the door sliding open for her.
Gabriel walks down the hallway at a relaxed pace and opens his comm line. “Soldier, Widowmaker, we found what we need on Sub-Floor Six.”
“Affirmative,” Jack says. “Will be delayed. Cleanup on Sub-Floor Three.”
“Need help?”
“No. Just being thorough.”
Gabriel snorts and activates a damage-alert app in his mask’s HMD to keep a virtual eye on Jack; the four of them are good—Gabriel privately names them nuBlackwatch though surely Jack suspects with the outfits Gabriel designed—better than anything this world has to offer yet Gabriel isn’t about to let his guard down. “Widowmaker?”
Amélie responds quickly. “Sub-Floor Four clear and charges set. On route.”
“See, Soldier, that is what I like to hear.”
There is a long pause and Gabriel knows there is a fifty-fifty chance of him getting a dirty joke as a response. He’s disappointed when Jack just says, “Working on it. Soldier 76, out.”
Gabriel shakes his head and plans on teasing out whatever Jack is holding back after the mission. He walks down the hall, checking for life signs as the lab doors open. Much like Talon and its disturbing corporate efficiency, this Hydra facility has evacuation procedures that Sombra took advantage of, herding the Hydra agents to where Amélie laid in wait while Gabriel and Jack cleared out the first two basement levels.
The first two bases they hit had mixed company and only Gabriel’s careful planning allows them to sift through Hydra and actual SHIELD agents without unintentional casualties so far. Between Sombra’s creative door locking and Amélie using Ana’s sleep darts, Gabriel rarely had to direct Jack and his biotic fields to stabilize SHIELD agents in the crossfire.
This base is easier, full of Hydra true-believers and barely subtle Nazi iconography just one floor down from the nondescript main lobby.
Raiding this place is fun and works as an opening statement. Gabriel intends for Hydra to start seriously worrying and the body count distribution will be a clear sign. There are too many layers of dormant agents to unearth each cell individually, and this raid is the first step of spooking Hydra into identifiable action.
Gabriel stops at the end of the hall, facing the last lab. The door does not open like the others. And it’s...different.
This lab lacks the standard window and project label setup and the door is reinforced. In addition to the card reader that all the other labs have, this lock has a retina scanner.
Gabriel checks the manifest on his HMD.
[Project WS. Classification: Weapon. Status: Activation Sequence in Progress, T-00:14:13.]
Interesting.
Gabriel pulls out his masterkey—a black card labeled Hydra All Access Pass with purple skulls—and swipes it through the card reader.
The lock beeps a rejection.
Gabriel tries again.
Same result.
“Sombra,” He growls into the comm. “Your ridiculous key doesn’t work.”
“What do you mean, doesn’t work?” Her voice crackles over the comm in annoyance. “Of course it works!”
“Come see for yourself, chica .”
“I swear, viejo, if you are swiping the wrong way—”
“Sombra, do not whine so much,” Amélie says and Gabriel hears her voice both on the comm line and from right behind him.
He does not jump. He turns around, perfectly calm, to find Amélie right behind him.
Amélie smirks back and blessedly keeps her mouth shut.
Seconds later Sombra appears down the hall, holoscreen trailing her behind her. “Hi, babe,” she says, giving Amélie a quick kiss on the check. Their outfits, the glow of their tech, and anti-face rec makeup give them an otherworldly appearance. With the image they present along with Gabriel and Jack’s own masks, Gabriel looks forward to when he finally lets Hydra see who is targeting them.
Sombra glares at Gabriel. “I know this shit was phased out when you were a baby but what part of a card reader don’t you get?”
This coming from the kid who had to google how to pump gas. “The part where your stuff doesn’t work.”
Sombra whips out her own card— Hydra All Access Pass Deluxe, made flashier by a layer of glitter—and slides it through the machine. “See, I told you—”
The lock beeps another rejection.
Her ego visibly deflates and shock stays on her face for seconds before her lips twist into a vicious grin.
“No one keeps me out.” Sombra overlays the holoscreen on top of the lock and starts typing at the generated keyboard. Forty-seven seconds later—Gabriel activates a timer on his HMD so he can tease her about being slow later—the door slides open.
Gabriel isn’t sure who is more surprised, them or the three Hydra agents in the room. The room’s two feet thick concrete walls can keep quite a few secrets along with providing a false sense of security.
Before the Hydra agents even manage to voice their surprise, Gabriel materializes his shotguns and shoots two dead while Amélie disarms the third and throws them against a strange cousin of a dental chair. In the same blink, Sombra is at the computer monitor connected to a pod.
The pod is long enough to fit a human and while the tech is ancient, Gabriel has the sinking feeling he’s looking at a cryochamber’s great grandpa with that iced-over porthole.
“Ooh, this isn’t connected to the rest of the servers.” Sombra pulls up data on the monitor, scrolling faster than human eyes can keep up. “A countdown to release the weapon? Let’s see what I can do about this.”
“Do you want this one alive?” Amélie asks, Widow’s Kiss aimed at the Hydra agent.
The agent puts their hands up. “I’ll tell you everything—”
“Not really,” Sombra says with a careless wave. “I have all we need.”
“Wait!”
Amélie silences the Hydra agent hard hit with the butt of her rifle and they crumple against the smaller computer terminal connected to the dental chair. The hit may or may not be a killing blow, but their fate is the same once the charges go off.
“Huh. I can’t turn this off and,” Sombra pauses. “Oh. That’s weird.”
Decades of experience sets off warning bells in Gabriel’s head at the phrase that’s weird. He’s heard that many times before being blown up or shot at or finding his objective gone. Annoyance bubbles up through Gabriel’s mission calm. “Sombra, if I have to shadowstep us out of here because you missed a self-destruct sequence, I will leave you twenty miles away from the nearest piece of technology more advanced than a sundial.”
“Nothing like that, pendejo. This isn’t a weapon, not really. Project WS aka Winter Soldier—”
A panel pops open on the pod, releasing cold air.
“—it’s a person. Well, when it thaws, it will be a person.”
Gabriel aims a shotgun at the pod. “What sort of cryogenic bullshit are we looking at here, Sombra?”
Holoscreens bloom around Sombra, some playing silent videos, others with photos. All show a collection of dead or soon to be dead bodies being taken out by the same masked and armored person.
“Looks like Hydra has their own super soldier.” Sombra looks at Gabriel, her eyes wide and smile tight as the layers of holoscreens stack around her.
Gabriel reads the apprehension but can’t decipher what kind of landmine she’s hit. “So why is he on the other side of the fridge door?”
“They keep him like that between missions. He isn’t very...cooperative.” Her eyes dart towards Amélie. “He’s gone back and forth between Hydra and Department X...though he’s originally an American soldier. And he looks pretty good for hitting nearly a century if you ignore the raccoon eyes.”
“Not cooperative? How so?” Amélie’s voice holds no inflection and that should be normal, not making Gabriel’s warning bells worse.
Sombra winces. “In the ‘would murder his handlers if it wasn’t for a shitton of drugs and hypnotic programming.’”
The psychological landmine detonates quietly.
Gabriel resists looking at Widowmaker. She never allows herself to show true emotions anyways—especially not about this —in unsecured locations, let alone on a mission. Dammit, brainwashed soldiers never work out for anyone, and with a pool of Nazi believers and cash to throw around, what is even the point of Hydra bothering to brainwash?
Then again, Talon took Amélie in retaliation to Gérard’s investigations, going an extra step rather than send a hitman. Sometimes, people bloated with power and money seem to do things just because they can.
Gabriel takes a deep breath and tries to think. “What’s the scenario if we drop him off somewhere quiet with a new identity and psych care?”
“They didn’t exactly test that but with Hydra programming, that could potentially trigger a mass murder, a return to Hydra or the wherever Soviets had him last, suicide, or any combination of the three,” Sombra says, almost clinically as she goes through the files. “And then there’s the issues of super strength, a very distinct prosthetic, necessary detox…we could give him to the Avengers?”
Gabriel snorts. “Even if they weren’t in within Hydra-SHIELD’s influence, I wouldn’t trust them with a gerbil.”
“He’s not a mutant but maybe we could talk to that one school into taking him in. Give a nice endowment and maybe that prof of theirs can help with his head—”
A sharp crack of glass and twisted metal distracts Sombra from her retort. For a moment, both Gabriel and Sombra stare at the mass of metal and glass now underneath Amélie’s rifle. Sombra shifts defensibly in front of the pod’s screen.
“You two are making this complicated,” Amélie says, calm and collected despite the sparks coming off the now broken dental chair terminal. “Grant him the kindness of death. I would have preferred such a mercy back then.”
She levels a stony stare at both of them and then stalks out of the room.
When he no longer can hear the ominous click of her heels, Gabriel lets out a sigh and,“Fuck.”
Holoscreens blink in and out of existence as Sombra’s attention goes from the door to the pod and back. “I didn’t think...didn’t know what to do with the data...”
To top off Amélie’s trauma feelings, Sombra has helpless significant other feelings. Great. Where’s Jack when he needs a second pair of hands at damage control?
Gabriel puts his hand on her shoulder and, mindful of his metal claws, gives her a steadying squeeze. “We’ll figure this out.”
Sombra stares at the doorway. “What are we going to do?”
Amélie is right about the easy answer is to kill this Project Winter Soldier. She might even be right about death being a mercy as well as efficient.
Gabriel has made that choice many times in the past, taken the shot because it’s reasonable and not lost sleep over it.
But Gabriel can’t murder someone with Amélie’s history in cold blood and then look her in the eye later.
And he is no stranger to giving people a chance, either.
“Fucking hell,” he says. “It’s been a while. Do I need to sign any papers for adoption these days?”
Sombra gives a sound that is almost a laugh, which he’ll take as a sign she won’t need as much careful handling with this as Amelie. “His identity doesn’t exist officially so you can just pick him up and run.”
Gabriel sighs. “Great.”
A screen flashes into existence displaying vitals. Gabriel is no doctor but the sudden jump from a flatline to erratic fluctuation can’t be a good sign. “Sombra.”
“Give me a moment, he’s waking up.” Sombra leans over the open panel and—probably because she can’t resist being annoying—sings, “Despierta, mira que ya amaneció! ”
The arm that reaches out and grabs her by the throat is almost deserved.
Almost.
Gabriel mists across the room, ready to free her when her when her hands grasp the arm—a metal prosthetic and thus hackable—and the limb releases her.
Only for an organic limb to follow.
Gabriel catches that arm by the wrist, grip tightening as the Winter Soldier struggles with more strength than the leverage should allow. Right, enhanced.
Gabriel pulls the soldier out of the pod, ignoring Sombra’s cry of “Careful!”
Besides the obvious strength, this Winter Soldier looks terrible; greying skin, blisters on his extremities, and muscle spasms. Of all the tech to be years behind, Gabriel never gave thought to cryogenics. Either Hydra really screwed up or their supersoldier enhancements come with a decent healing factor and this shit is considered acceptable, maybe even intentional.
“Easy now,” Gabriel says to the struggling soldier. “Barely awake and you come out swinging...Now, who were you expecting?”
The Winter Soldier blinks at him and Gabriel can’t help grinning under his mask. If he hadn’t decided to help this kid, Gabriel would totally pretend to be the personification of Death again just to see how far he could take the farce.
“These guys?” Gabriel points a claw at the corpses. “Hope you won’t miss them.”
The soldier sags in his grip and for a moment Gabriel thinks it’s relief before all of his weight falls towards him. Gabriel grabs both shoulders and eases the soldier back into the pod.
“Sombra?”
“Files says this is normal. Both the choking thing and the fainting thing.”
“Seems like a shitty design for a ‘top secret weapon.’”
“If Winter here wasn’t suped up like you and Jack, this would be a corpse, not a case of...narcolepsy.” Sombra leans down to poke the unconscious soldier before ripping through his shirt with one of her claws and places a diagnostic strip right above his heart. After a minute of reading vitals, she looks back at Gabriel. “He should be fine. Probably.”
“Great.” Gabriel rubs against the top of his mask. He knows he’s going to have a headache once he crashes after this mission. Gabriel thought this would be an easy one, too. “Now I need to figure out how to tell Soldier 76.”
“Tell me what?” Jack says from the hallway, pulse rifle ready.
“You could have announced that you finished up there.”
“Widowmaker suggested radio silence in passing.” The visor’s red gaze pans from the corpses to the open pod to the Winter Soldier. “What the fuck?”
“Our newest kid.” Gabriel gestures at the cryopod. “Congrats, we’re dads again.”
Jack shifts the pulse rifle, no longer aiming but far from relaxed. He steps in the room, boots leaving dark red marks on the lab floor. “That doesn’t look like a kid.”
Gabriel blinks and takes his first good look at the Winter Soldier. He has a sturdy build and dark, mangy hair and a metal left arm…
Holy fuck.
At least this kid is as pale as Jack at Christmas because Gabriel is going to have enough problems with this one without being reminded continually of Jesse.
“Everyone’s a kid, compared to us.” Gabriel clears his throat. “And there were extenuating brainwashing circumstances...so we are now responsible?”
He hates sounding weak there but now he has Jesse in his mind and, dammit, Gabriel feels like he’s once again asking Jack to sweep aside a whole bunch of domestic and international laws because Gabriel fell for another sob story.
Jack glances over his shoulder towards the door. “So that’s why she...huh.”
Gabriel frowns. What kind of impression did Jack get from Amélie?
“Come on, pops.” Sombra bounds over to Jack, full of false cheer and leans on his arm heavily. “Winter here—his name is Winter Soldier, btw—is apparently an infamous assassin known only by legend. Sounds like he will fit right in with our family.”
Jack tilts his head and Gabriel can’t tell if he is just thinking or if Sombra is sending a barrage of texts through his visor. Finally, Jack says, “Alright. Charges are set. Did you secure the info?”
Sombra swats at his arm. “Soldier 76, I am a professional.”
“Then let’s grab him,” Jack points his thumb towards the Winter Soldier. “And get out of here. Unless you have more surprises to share, Reaper?”
Gabriel laughs and relaxes. “It’s not my fault you’re late and miss out on things.”
“Hey,” Jack says, leaning against the bathroom doorway. Amélie wishes he had not yet changed out of tactical gear or, at least, put on his glasses. Jack’s young face brings up memories of other ghosts.
Amélie focuses on removing the anti-face rec makeup, scrubbing off paint and what may be tears alike. Jack cannot see her distress and Amélie uses that comfort to strengthen her voice. “Are you going to insist I ‘talk’?”
Sombra has, badgering her every twenty minutes since the Hydra base sank into the ground. Gabriel gives her space but not even their new acquisition stops his pointed glances.
Jack must be satisfied that this Winter Soldier is momentarily stable for him to move down the line of triage.
“Nah. I’m thinking pizza,” Jack says. “There’s a place in the city whose instagram makes me think of that place we went to in Sicily.”
“Oh?”
“And the wine list is long and I don’t think I can pronounce some of these—”
Amélie scoffs and then speaks in French, “Do not pretend to be stupid, Soldier. I have known you for two lifetimes.”
Jack grins, looking every bit the young commander Gérard both loved and loved to complain about. “I’m being honest,” he replies in the same language, with the Swiss accent he’s never managed to unlearn. “There’s all these new eco selections with fancy names that don’t mean anything yet. I want to see if we can find something that tastes more like home.”
Home. What a word when first anything that could be considered such was taken from her and then later she followed Sombra to this world, leaving everyplace she once knew behind.
This is like regaining herself from Talon again; everything is familiar yet foreign.
“And where is home?”
“Fuck if I know.” Jack lapses back into English. “Maybe after enough wine we will figure that out.”
Amélie activates her nanites—well, technically Sombra’s and Amélie would be suspicious if she hadn’t secured a real promise of no mischief—and watches her skin ripple back to the cream color. “Are you sure our companions will do well with our new...friend?”
“I left sleep darts with the note. If they can’t handle one amnesic super soldier between them, well…” Jack shrugs. “They can always be knocked down a peg or two.”
Amélie covers her laugh. “And are you so different, mon ami?”
“Nah. But I got you and a regular date at the gun range to keep me humble.” Jack says. “Could hit up a range too, if you are in the mood.”
“I do not have the patience today for relics. Pizza sounds appetizing, if it is good as the place in Sicily.”
“I’m not making any promises,” Jack says and holds out his hand for her. “But it’s a new world, we might as well see what we can make of it.”
That is a bit heavy-handed even for Jack. Amélie takes his hand anyway. Memories of the past will not cow her into hiding in a bathroom; she is not a spider that hides in the shadows.