Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Flashforward — 2024

Daisy clutched her stomach to stop the bleeding, as she limp-ran outside the garage. Her mind was coming back to itself, but not fully, things were still out of place, like… who were those women in there with her? And who was that man they were with before she arrived? It was all so strange, but all she wanted was her dad, to see him and to hug him tight. It was another strange thing, to want the former Winter Soldier for a hug, but with her he was always soft and understanding, he always knew how to fix things… he would be able to fix this.

She managed to get to the entrance of the garage, but before she could go down the stairs in search for Bucky, she fell to her knees, her body finally too exhausted from everything that had happened. Daisy then heard someone scream her name, before a pair of arms squeezed her tightly around a warm body.

Bucky, surely.

“Dad-”

“Shhh… don’t talk, Daisy, I’m right here,” her dad said, and Daisy nodded, her breathing turning more shallow.

“S’hurts…”

“I know, kiddo, I know. Someone is gonna be there to help us, ok. We’re gonna get you safely out of here, ok?”

“M-ma-”

“I am gonna call him later, tell him about this developpement.”

“Th-thanks…”

“Don’t worry, everything is gonna be fine. Your body is gonna start to heal in a minute and you will be back in the field in no time,” Bucky promised, a smile on his face-

Present — April 2016 

“Soldat, otchet o missii,” (Soldier, mission report.) her handler demanded, as the young brunette was cuffed to the chair. 

“Missiya byla uspeshnoy, ser. S Gideonom Malikom obrashchalis' v sootvetstvii so spetsifikatsiyami. Yego predatel'stvo Gidry bylo khorosho izvestno v organizatsii, poetomu on znal, pochemu ya byl tam. On ne soprotivlyalsya, kogda ya obrushil na nego zemletryaseniya. On umer dovol'no bystro, yego skelet i organy byli razdrobleny. Svideteley ne bylo, i s okhranoy raspravilis' nezamedlitel'no.” (The mission was successful, sir. Gideon Malick was dealt with according to specifications. His betrayal of Hydra was well known in the organization, so he knew why I was there. He did not fight back when I unleashed the quakes upon him. He died fairly quickly, his skeleton and organs were crushed. There were no witnesses, and the guards were dealt with swiftly.)

“A yego telo?” (And his body?)

“Pepel.” (Ashes.)

“Khoroshiy.” (Good.) He then turned to the scientists, nodding sharply at them. The four men started moving around their stations, serious looks in their eyes. She knew those looks, they were preparing to complete an order from her handler.

They gave her a mouth guard to gag her and protect her teeth from the grinding she would do from the pain. Her breathing became shallow with the anticipation of the device around her head activating. “Sdelay eto,” (Do it.) her handler told the scientists and one of them clearly pressed the button fast, since moments later, she felt a searing pain in her head.

God, sometimes she missed the Red Room’s mind control serum… a lot less pain.

The pain was so great that her thoughts were completely blank, since thinking about anything made her head hurt more. Her mind shut down quickly after that, like it was used to this precise type of pain. Electricity coursed through her body and she couldn’t stop the scream that escaped her lips despite the mouth-guard that was in her mouth. Nothing but the pain registered in her mind. Just crippling pain that shut down everything else in her brain.

When the electricity suddenly stopped and she could think again, she found that she couldn’t remember why she had been in the chair in the first place or ever being on it before, really. All she remembered was Hydra raising her, training her to be better, to be the Soldier they wanted but never sent out yet. She then looked up to the general before her, a questioning look in her eyes, though the stern one he gave her made the younger brunette grit her teeth and steel her own expression. Satisfied with the blank look he got from her, the general walked over to the girl. Before he spoke, he unclasped her bound limbs, setting her free from the machine. “Vy uvoleny, Quake.” (You are dismissed, Quake.) His tone was harsh and cut through the very air around her. Her powers flaked around them ever so slightly, but she automatically rained them in, as to not anger the general.

“Spasibo, ser,” (Thank you, sir.) she replied, getting up quickly to leave the room, guards following behind her.

She woke up with a start that morning, finally fully remembering her last mind wipe. She’d started remembering bits and pieces of that memory, of her last two or three missions. She remembered how they would wipe her mind before and after missions to ensure complete compliance, how they would wipe her every time she showed the tiniest bit of noncompliance. But those were just fragments. She couldn’t be sure if it was different days, different missions, since she was always dressed the same. Same haircut, same mission suit - which she only wore during simulations and in the memories, same panicked feeling until numbness took over. Panic was the only thing she did feel, however, since she still didn’t register the pain, yet. She also remembered how she never even had a name, or at least not one they’d tell her about. She was always just ‘Quake’ to them.

The first fragments of memories only started coming to her a few days ago, and she was learning to keep the blank look she’d have when she was just a submissive little assassin for Hydra. That morning was her first full memory, and it made her want to remember more, fight to keep in control, hide if she had to. She remembered everything from after the wipes, all her abilities and powers, and she’d learned from the fragmented memories how to act like she was still a puppet from them. It had gotten harder with every new piece of memory, but she still felt more confidence in her ability to pull it off.

Acting like she was still with them, she went to the computer lab to continue working on the facility’s cybersecurity. The computers in the computer lab had been refurbished since the shut-down a few years prior, since the Hydra officials taking control of the new Program wanted her to learn to use modern electronics to her advantage. 

The best hackers in Hydra taught her how to do what they did best, but she bested them rather quickly, almost like it was already second nature for her. All her talents meant that she updated security with the facility’s servers fairly quickly, and since they left her alone in the room, thinking nothing of it, Quake decided to go into some of the Hydra files, see what they had that she was protecting.

There were files on Hydra alliances, including with the Red Room, and files on all of Hydra’s assets, past and present, which included all the Winter Soldiers ever created, from the Original one, to the failed ones, to her. She found information on the experiments they did with the Red Room’s help, but didn’t linger on them, since she wasn’t exactly sure she even wanted to know all that. 

She then scrolled through a few of the asset files, to see what was on it, but didn’t pay much attention to the details. They usually wrote about the normal information, like their date and place of birth, family information, name, asset number and sometimes there was a date of death. There were many assets before her, but there were nine Winter Soldier assets created before her and five more that were not from the same program but existed within the same servers of Hydra. Asset W-1 was the Original Winter Soldier, Assets W-2 to W-6 were the failed ones from the 1991 edition and Asset W-7 and W-8 were versions they tried to create with small children that were given the serum, like the six before them. They kept the 5 Assets from 1991 frozen, but destroyed W-7 and W-8, since they had gone far too crazy. Her Asset number was W-9, and they also gave her the Quake designation, due to her powers, and called her the only successful Asset they had in the Winter Soldier Program. The Original Asset was a success, up until his programming failed and he left. There were also Assets G-1 to G-5 but those were from a different project using the same servers, so she ignored those files, not interested in the other experiments Hydra did.

Quake found her file, which was under the name; Asset W-9: Quake. It also happened to be the only name she remembered being called, since she was a weapon, and weapons didn’t get names. According to the file, she was born on July 2nd 2000 to an Inhuman woman that they killed a year after her birth. Which happened to be around the time the Hydra officials in the Program stopped needing her. Sadly, there was no file, no name or anything attached to her, so the young girl couldn't find any more information on her mother. The only thing she did find was that her mother left her with a name, apparently; Daisy. If she was honest, she thought it was a cute name, somewhat delicate compared to the person she was now. To be fair, she was made to be this way. It was ironic that her mother would name her after such a beautiful thing, and Hydra made her into a monster. Her eyes moved to the information on her father… Which was…

Wait. What? No. No, this couldn’t be. Unless… it would explain why she had abilities from the super serum without suffering the injection…

Her father… her father was Bucky Barnes. She was the daughter of the original Winter Soldier, how was that even possible? 

The man had trained her in almost every discipline in combat that he knew, and he never seemed to know her, so she guessed he was either never told she was his daughter, or the information was wiped from his mind. She didn’t know why she cared about that, but she preferred the second option. It meant that once he remembered her, he might try to come for her, no matter how unlikely that was. He might also believe she was dead. But it was a big ‘if’ to think that he would have known he had a daughter and would come for her, especially since the Winter Soldier Program had been scrubbed in 2014, so it could be replaced by the Quake Project later on.

She knew not to get her hopes up. It could end badly if she did.

Her eyes moved to the last folder in her file. The name caught her attention immediately due to how impossible it seemed. The folder was called ‘Asset W-9 missions/conditioning’.

Her shaking hand moved the mouse to the folder and clicked on it. There was surveillance footage titled by dates and mission numbers, or mind wipe number.

It disgusted her how much they did to her. She didn’t have to watch the videos to know how horrible the wipes were. She - Daisy, she decided - heard the Original Asset - her father - scream during his wipes, and she couldn’t imagine how much it would hurt. Well, she could imagine, since she remembered bits and pieces of her last ones, though the actual acts of wiping her mind and conditioning her had still yet to resurface fully. But what she still couldn’t believe was that they managed to wipe certain parts of her memory, i.e. her missions and wipes themselves. If she hadn’t gotten so used to them then she never would have known. Hydra was smart and they had powerful scientists in their employ but even they shouldn’t have been able to do that with such ease. They had made her into their weapon, a monster capable of so much destruction and death. All the proof she needed was in those videos. 

She just couldn’t face the monster they turned her into, however, and closed the folder tab.

Daisy was born in the Hydra base and her childhood had been there, no matter how dark and twisted it was, she realized she didn’t want to live the rest of her life there. She wanted to live as close to a normal life as possible outside of Hydra. Daisy wanted, no, she needed out. She needed out of her cage and she didn’t want to be Hydra’s pet anymore. She didn’t remember being let out for missions, only the long hours of simulations and training exercises in the gyms, but she was disgusted by the idea the videos gave her, as they were showing the worst parts of her. In her mind, she was still an untested weapon, trained but not yet taken out to war. She hated how referred to herself as a weapon, untested or otherwise. It degraded her, made her out to be something she wasn’t. No, she was a person. A living, breathing, person with her own mind, with her own wants and needs. And what she wanted was to at least know what it was like to be a normal teenager. Hydra didn’t care about what she wanted, they cared that they could use her to get what they wanted.

It felt strange to Daisy, working on protecting Hydra’s servers. Sure, she’d done it plenty of times, she knew the code by heart, but it felt different now. She felt different now. Before today, she was just Quake, the last Winter Soldier, with no name of her own. She was whoever Hydra made her to be. Now, she had a name. Daisy . She had parents, too; Bucky Barnes and the enhanced Chinese woman. What she was missing was a life, but she needed to have a choice for that, and those were things she didn’t have while growing up. She already felt like a different person, and it felt like her first day as Daisy .

She was disgusted by what she saw in those files; they portrayed an assassin she didn’t want to be. The person - scratch that, the monster - that was shown in there was not who Daisy wanted to be. It was who Hydra made her into - tortured her into. They wanted her to become a cold-blooded assassin, like the Original Winter Soldier - her father - and like him, she was undeserving of a name, only the moniker they constantly called her as; Quake - Asset W-9. 

Her stomach rolled with nausea and bile rose in her throat. Her blood nearly boiled as she turned it over in her head once more, but even underneath that, she almost felt numb. She wasn’t sure what to think or even how to feel. How could she be anything more than what they made her if she couldn’t even understand her own emotions?

She mentally shook her head to make those thoughts disappear as she felt the ghost of a hand on her back - a little too low for her liking - which sent a shiver down her spine, forcing her to look behind her but finding nothing. Memories came back in so many different ways and Daisy hated that this particular one came with a flash of a much older man pressing his hand on her back softly, at the same time as she physically felt the hand do the movement.

Daisy felt the memory continue to play in her mind, and she tried to ignore it, like all the times it happened for real, and with other men within Hydra.

Daisy couldn’t take it anymore.

She had had enough of the agents’ behavior towards her, and all the lies… the secrets. It was all too much. She wanted to keep remembering… keep being Daisy without fear that her name would be taken away from her. How many times had she done this… finding the file… before they discovered her noncompliance and wiped her… how many times would she continue this cycle of coming back to herself. She couldn’t remember much, so those were still a bunch of unanswered questions that she wanted to get the chance to find the truth about.

She did know the truth about one thing, though; she would fight her way through every Hydra agent in this base if it meant she could be free of them. She didn’t want to, but she would. Even if she had to die trying.

“Vremya vyshlo, Kveyk. Trenirovki nachinayutsya v desyat',” (Time's up Quake. Training starts in ten.) a guard said, as he banged on the door 2 hours later, and she froze on her seat. When she came out of her stupor a few seconds later, she got up and walked in the direction of the gym with the guards walking behind her but she stopped moving halfway through, tired of it all and deciding to do something to change that. “Dvigaysya, Soldat.” (Move, Soldier.)

“Net,” (No,) she said, shaking her head. She heard the sound of a gun cocking and knew the guard who ordered her to move was now aiming his gun at her.

“Teper' soldat.” (Now, soldier.) She smirked and twisted her body to steal the gun from him. Before the other one could move, she had her second hand aimed at him, ready to send a shockwave at the guard.

“YA by ne stal probovat' nichego radikal'nogo,” (I wouldn't try anything drastic,) she said, threateningly.

“My sdelali vas takim, kakoy vy yest'. Ty nashe oruzhiye. Kak vy dumayete, chto proizoydet, yesli vy vzbuntuyetes'. General sotret vam mozgi i pomestit vas v kriokameru do tekh por, poka vy yemu ne prigodites’,” (We made you what you are. You are our weapon. What do you think will happen if you rebel. The general will wipe your mind and store you in cryo until he has a use for you.) the guard with the gun said, clearly angry at her, but still not thinking of this act as a rebellion. Just the insubordinations of a child.

Anger…

The most present emotion they displayed in the facility. 

She was taught at an early age that people could be manipulated through emotion. You show the right emotion and a person cracks. Maybe pull a tear or two for effect when displaying sadness. That was all theoretical, however, since she was never brought on those kinds of missions, not that she would remember if she did. She still only remembered an assassination or two, nothing big, yet.

They had manipulated her, kept her thinking she wasn’t ready for missions, telling her her words weren’t programmed in, yet. But those were just lies from her handler to keep her eager to prove herself to the General. She remembered parts of missions, remembered when she was recalibrated using her words the last time. She remembered seeing the dark purple notebook her handler kept with him, the words he’d used written somewhere inside. It was similar to the one the original Winter Soldier’s - Bucky’s - handler had, just different colors-

The sound of a gun cocking behind her brought her back to reality. 

Oh right. She was holding a guard at gunpoint while he did the same with her and she was also threatening the other guard with the use of her powers. 

But the noise came from behind her, so… that meant a guard was now also behind her.

As quickly as her mind was back on task, she switched the aim of both hands, shooting the armed agent standing beside the other in the kneecap. She disassembled the gun with her powers before they could react and crouched down, twisting her body to do a leg sweep on the two remaining agents, which included the one behind her. She clenched her fist, disassembling the gun that the agent behind her had dropped. “Eto mozhet nemnogo povredit',” (This might hurt a little.) she said, her hand flicking at her side. The three guards then started to cry out in surprise, rather than pain, as they saw their legs start to disintegrate before their eyes. She had learned that fun party trick in training while she was still brainwashed. She’d never had a reason to use it against the handlers, since she was ‘loyal’ to them, but now she wanted to be free, and this was the best way to not have the other guards discover three dead bodies while patrolling the halls. 

You never know who’s watching. 

Daisy then stealthily hid in the vents to come up with a plan. Killing everyone on base was a possibility, she could do it, it would just be really messy, though disintegrating them would be far less messy, but far more exhausting. She would just have to find an easier way of getting rid of them, then…

A few moments later, she slid out of the vents, making as much noise as a mouse as she touched the floor with her combat boots. To be fair, her powers helped reduce the level of impact and noise. Once she was in the corridor, she walked to her cell: Asset W-9 - Quake. 

Extending her hand up, she destroyed the lock on her door so she could enter and headed for her desk. There was a hidden compartment in there with knives, in case of an emergency, that she had probably stashed while she was more lucid and less loyal to Hydra. There was also a gun, which she took. Daisy hid everything in her suit’s hidden pockets before leaving the room, going back into the vents.

Daisy knew the layout of the base by heart, since she spent a lot of her time in the vents, and her powers let her take ultrasound scans around her, so she could know where everything was. She knew the command room, with the alert buttons, was nearby, so she moved through the vents to go take it from the guards, kill the agents inside so she could either kill everyone else or force them to leave. She went through the labyrinth of vents leading to the command room, her gun at the ready once she got there, and jumped down without making a sound, knowing the two agents had their backs to her. The young assassin twisted the silencer onto the loaded gun in her hands, before aiming it to the first agent. 

She took a deep breath, squeezing her grip on the handle, her index finger moving to the trigger ever so slowly. She didn’t have to worry about the safety, since it was always off, as per her training. 

Daisy released the air from her lungs as she simultaneously squeezed the trigger, shooting the agent in the head.

He was dead before he even hit the control panel. The gunshot didn’t make a sound, but the body’s head colliding with the panel definitely did, causing the second agent to turn in shock at his dead colleague.

The young girl’s brain fired as many neurons as it could in the seconds that followed, coming up with a new plan that didn’t involve killing the second agent right away. She could use him to get Hydra out of there. It would no longer be her problem if the agents left, since once she did as well, Daisy would be able to disappear, never to be seen again. She would just have to prepare for that eventuality, process every bit of knowledge she could find about being a teenage girl in the world of normal.

Finally deciding against pulling the trigger, she kept the gun on him, knowing the agents in that room didn’t carry weapons, since they weren’t necessarily trained for it. The second agent had turned to her while she was finishing her thought, his eyes going wide and his hand moving to the alarm button. It wasn’t hard to see, it was big and red with white cyrilic written on it. The brunette girl couldn’t have that, so she flicked the wrist of her free hand, quaking his index finger to bend in an unnatural way. “YA by ne stal etogo delat' na tvoyem meste. Teper' nikto ne mozhet tebe pomoch'.” (I wouldn’t do that if I were you. No one can help you, now.)

“Chto ty khochesh'?” (What do you want?) the agent asked, his heart racing faster with every minute. Daisy could even feel it go even fast when she took three steps closer to him, his body even shaking when she did so. Good. They all knew what she was capable of, clearly they had feared a time when she would have enough and break from the programming.

“YA khochu, chtoby vy peredali soobshcheniye cherez sistemu gromkoy svyazi. Vy mozhete sdelat' eto, ne tryasyas', verno? Eto dolzhno byt' pravdopodobno.” (I want you to give a message through the PA system. You can do that without shaking, right? It has to be believable.) He nodded, though Daisy wasn’t worried. He would do it, and he would do it well, only to save his own skin.

“Yesli ya eto sdelayu, ty otpustish' menya?” (If I do, you’ll let me go?) And there it was. She knew he would ask that question.

“Konechno.” (Sure.) Daisy shrugged as she spoke, never intending on keeping that promise. If it even was a promise.

She wrote a text for him to read from, her gun on his head reminding him not to break from the script, or there would be a bullet in his head as a result of his defiance. “Vnimaniye vsemu personalu.” (Attention all personnel.) He turned to Daisy, and she nodded, he wasn’t shaky, so that was good. For her more than him. But he didn’t need to know that. “Baza skomprometirovana, yeye nuzhno evakuirovat', Programma ostanovlena. Povtoryayu, ves' personal dolzhen evakuirovat'sya. U vas yest' 20 minut.” (The base has been compromised, it needs to be evacuated, the Program has been shut down. I repeat all personnel must evacuate. You have 20 minutes.) He stopped the broadcast and turned back to Daisy, hoping to evacuate with the others. “YA mogu idti?” (Can I go now?)

“Da.” She shot him in the head before he could even sigh in relief.

As expected, all non-combative agents left far before the 20 minutes were up, scared that someone was coming for them, if the base was compromised enough that it needed evacuating. The high-ranking agents left, but it took them longer, clearly confused as to why they weren’t notified by their allies in the Russian army. The only ones who called bullshit and stayed were about a third of the highly trained agents that had trained her.

Daisy found them roaming the halls of the base after the 20-minute marker had passed, their guns aimed in front of them. She had decided to stick to the vents, since she knew them by heart and could track anyone from there using her powers to echolocate. Doing a headcount, she detected 14 agents had stayed, and had separated into three groups. 

She found the first group of five, sliding out of the vent and using her powers to push them into the wall all at once. Daisy had learned a few months back that she could create a blast around her to throw off circling enemies, and she had used their technique against them. She shot two and engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the first one who got his bearings back. She ended up using his larger size against him when she had to use her momentum to flip him to the ground and use her powers to break his ribs. He wouldn’t be up anytime soon.

The other two stood together and tag-teamed to fight her off, but like the first one, they were doomed to fail. Daisy blocked fists left and right using her powers as a cushion, going a little harder on the soft blasts just enough to hurt them. She’d had enough a few moments later, breaking every bone in their hands when they tried to punch her again. She then quaked one of the guys’ knees so he’d fall and she basically broke most of the other one’s bones in his body. Then, to make sure they wouldn’t follow, she shot them all in the head.

The second group of five was pretty far out, so she had time to check on her ammo before sliding up into the vents for stealth once again. Daisy managed to find the second team pretty easily and decided to not waste anymore time on fighting these Hydra agents and get done with it as fast as she could. She decided on jumping out of a vent further behind them and surprise them, since they were all facing the front in a 2-1-2 formation. She threw her knife at the man in the middle, knowing it would catch the attention of the agents behind him, and subsequently the two in the front. The four agents still alive (she assumed the man in the middle was dead, unless he miraculously survived a knife to the head) turned around, aiming their guns at her. Daisy smirked and waved her hands, causing the AK-47 to levitate out of their hands in balls of vibrations, before they were promptly dismantled and sent to the ground. With another flick of her wrist, she pushed them into the walls opposite them, pinning them there with the force of her will. Two of them had their necks snapped a few moments later, and she shot the other two in the head.

This fight, even if they were five against one, was an unfair match, and not on their side. No, she was largely more capable than all of them, even if she’d let them fight back like the five agents before them. Before leaving to go find the last four, she took out her knife from the first agent’s head and shot him in the heart, making sure he was well and truly dead.

Daisy found the last four pretty fast, and decided that they wouldn’t even see her as she killed them all one by one. She found them walking forward in an intersection and waited until their backs were to her before shooting the one closest to her location. There was another agent in perfect diagonal opposition to him, and when the bullet hit the first one in the jugular, it went through and through, flying into the other agent’s jaw. The first one bled out on the floor, but the second one was still alive, just knocked down. When the other two turned to their source of the bullet, Daisy was gone and back into the vents. She was always near a vent hatch, so she could always make quick exits. She shot one of them in the head from her position in the vents, before rolling off and exiting through the second hatch in the corridor, landing behind the last man standing. He didn’t last long, however, as she promptly snapped his neck with her bare hands.

Once that was done, she did one last sweep with her powers, relieved to find that she was officially the only living being in that base, aside from the five 1991 Winter Soldiers in the bunker, but they were contained in cryo-sleep so they weren’t technically alive. Daisy then decided to clean up her mess of dead bodies, using her powers to disintegrate them all, leaving no trace that they even died, like she did with the first Hydra agent she killed before the command room.

The next place she went to was the hangar where they stored their vehicles. When they’d evacuated, it seemed that the staff had conveniently left cars for her. Well, it was probably for the last agents, thinking they’d come to their senses and leave like the rest of them. Which they hadn’t, but no one but Daisy would know that, so…

She went to the weapons storage room right after. Unsurprisingly, there were more weapons and ammo than there was of anything else. Probably enough to arm a small army. Or her and the original Winter Soldier.

She noticed maybe five dozen handguns - MP-443 Грач (Grach) and 9mm - a similar amount of AK-74Ms, AK-47s and sniper rifles and knives. There was more than triple the amount of ammo per firearm, a large amount of holsters for guns, knives and ammunition carriers. 

She also noticed something else. There was a case near the middle of the room, so she approached it. Not caring if she was allowed to check or not - there was the word ‘Quake’ written on it in cyrilic, so it was hers - she opened the case and looked inside. There was a sleeveless black-leather bulletproof vest with a zipper and buttons in the front, a black tactical hooded-jacket with a zipper on it to put under the vest, black tactical pants with kneepads, metal gauntlets for her powers that look more combat-ready than her training gloves and some black combat boots.

She loved it.

It was beautiful.

She already had a mission suit, which was what she was currently wearing, as it was the same thing she wore at all times, including missions. She couldn’t be sure, though, since she couldn’t remember everything, but she guessed they’d made a new one not too long ago. Daisy closed the case, grabbed it with two gun holsters, three knife holsters and ammo carriers, four knives, two pistols, six ammo recharges, a sniper rifle with ammo and placed everything else in a duffle bag before leaving the room. That was all just in case someone figured out her plan and decided to come back to the base.

She decided to start preparing for the real world the next day and went back to her cell. She dropped her duffle and case on the ground and left again. She was getting hungry after the day she had, and the last time she ate was when she woke up. It felt like that was over eight hours earlier, and was probably that amount of time. She walked into the cafeteria and headed right to the counter, opening the cabinet with the protein shakes. She grabbed the box and then went back to the cabinets to find the bottle they always handed her when giving her a shake. She checked the instructions on the box and went to get the milk once the right amount of powder was placed in the bottle, and placed the instructed amount of the liquid. She shook the bottle as instructed and drank its contents, enjoying the familiar taste of the vanilla protein shake in her hands.

Once she was done, she went back to her cell and grabbed her duffle bag. She walked into the training room and settled for the punching bag in the middle of the room, wrapped her hands and placed her gloves over them before starting her evening training.

Jab. Cross. Cross. Hook. Cross. Jab.

Hook. Jab. Jab. Cross. Jab. Cross.

Jab. Cross. Hook. Jab. Cross. Jab.

Cross. Jab. Jab. Cross. Hook. Cross.

She fell into a series of punches, finding her rhythm while also keeping the unpredictability of her movements that had been ingrained into her since she could remember. By ingrained, she meant it was beaten into her. When she started to gain a pattern, she would be forced to stop and receive a beating, until she stopped and changed the pattern before it became readable.

Cross. Cross. Jab. Kick. Hook. Cross. Jab.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Hook. Cross. Jab. Cross.

Cross. Kick. Jab. Hook. Jab. Cross. Jab.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Hook. Cross. Jab. Cross.

The rhythm changed, and she could almost feel the burn in the spots where they used to hit her in training. She remembered those days when she would disobey orders and they would strike her until she yielded. They would threaten more than once to send her into the Red Room. Or ask a former student to teach her manners. Said the girls there were marble, never disobeyed and were the best when they came out of graduation. They never ended up doing it. The threat alone was enough for her to become more compliant and obey every order. Part of that was the conditioning they did to her, but that's another story. She did end up training with a Red Room student, close to her age, to test out the effectiveness of the brainwashing drug, so technically they didn’t send her there for obedience reconditioning, but to be a geaney pig. And she was compliant, she really was. Until she grew more resilient to it, that is. After their alliance with the Red Room stopped, she was put back on the old brainwashing techniques, with the electrocution and trigger words. They would always bring her back to the little pet weapon that they made her to be, but each time it would take a shorter amount of time for her to come back to her normal self, become more immune. She was far more trained than her younger self was when they would threaten her with bodily harm or with making her into marble. With each memory coming back to her, Daisy grew more aware of how to act while simulating still being under their command. It had become useful until she kicked everyone out and the previous times she came back to herself faster than anticipated.

Cross. Jab. Hook. Jab. Cross. Cross. Kick.

Jab. Jab. Kick. Cross. Jab. Kick. Cross. Jab.

Cross. Jab. Kick. Jab. Cross. Cross. Kick.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Kick. Jab. Kick. Cross. Cross.

She dropped the rhythm and started a dance of unpredictability. As she punched and kicked, her mind began wandering into her memories, basically reliving the moments, with the lack of emotion they brought.

Showing or even having emotions was a sign of vulnerability. Crying was worse. She never cried, but the tears that could have leaked from her eyes were beaten out of her. She was only allowed to show emotion in manipulation training. And those were fake.

Jab. Jab. Cross. Hook. Hook. Uppercut. Cross.

Cross. Jab. Cross. Kick. Jab. Hook. Kick.

Jab. Cross. Uppercut. Cross. Kick. Hook. Cross.

Cross. Cross. Jab. Kick. Jab. Kick. Jab.

Now they were gone, and she was free, but she didn’t feel free. Daisy technically wouldn’t be free until she was able to act like a normal teenage girl. If she was found by Hydra while in the outside world, not acting like she belonged there, she might as well sign her own death certificate. Daisy wasn’t scared of death, however. No, she didn’t care about death. She was trained to serve, and if that meant dying in the process, then she was alright with it. She didn’t mind death, she just would prefer to not die before experiencing the thrills of the real world at least once. 

Even if she managed to get to the US safely now, which she could, with the jets that were left in the hangar, she wouldn’t be free. No, they would find her fast due to her not understanding normal human interactions. She was trained to make herself disappear, blend in, but how was she supposed to do that if she wasn’t even aware of what to expect. Without proper knowledge of a target’s environment, any assassin or spy could be found and killed. Daisy didn’t want to die knowing she could have remedied the problem before even leaving. Dieing was not an option. Survival was the only possible scenario, no matter how long it took her to learn.

They used to train her in manipulation and mimicry, bringing her targets to practice on. They’d give her a file on the target so she would know whatever she needed to for her mission. The person was usually sitting on a chair with a hood, so they were unaware of where they were. Daisy could hear begging once she cocked her gun, or held the knife too close to their skin. She didn’t care for begging, it was like a fly buzzing in her ear; annoying. It was weakness, as was hesitation, that was why she showed neither. Death was inevitable. If she was the one to deliver it upon someone, then so be it. The Winter Soldier was an angel of death, and so would be Quake. She would have been, if she hadn’t started to remember, again, but she guessed it was better that way. She was trained to be a killing machine, a good soldier for Hydra. She just didn’t want to be that for them. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be wanting things, but the more time she spent outside their control, the more she discovered that she actually wanted things for herself. Like not being a killing machine for Hydra. Or being more normal. But that couldn’t happen, not while she was still a prisoner to this base. She may be free of her handler, but she would never truly be free of Hydra. Not while she stayed in that base.

Jab. Cross. Jab. Hook. Kick-

The bag flew off its chains and onto the ground. Her enhanced strength or vibrational powers weakened the bag, but she couldn’t tell which one did it first. 

She kept her eyes on the bag for a little while before she unwrapped her hands and moved to the weights, placing some on the bar above the bench. Once she was satisfied with the amount she placed, she laid on the bench and started lifting. Her superior strength let her lift more than people without the serum would. A lot more. She was a 16-year-old girl who could bench heavier weights than fully grown men.

It would be something she was proud of if she wasn’t bred to be a killing machine. She shook her head. She couldn’t be proud, it would get her killed.

When she was done with the weights, she went to her duffle bag and took a handgun. She checked the magazine inside and went to the targets on the wall when she found that it was full. She held the gun with one hand and aimed it at the target.

Inhale.

Wait.

Exhale.

Squeeze the trigger.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Her speed was well practiced as she pulled the trigger repeatedly. She then switched hands.

Repeat.

Switch hands again.

And again.

An hour or two later - she had no way to tell time in the gym - she was done with her full workout and headed to the showers. They were in the locker room, at the end of the training area. She removed her sweaty clothes and walked into one of the showers before locking the door to the stall. She was alone, but it was second nature by now. She had been beaten up once by a guard when she was younger and forgot to lock the door. Not for that, however, but for failing to complete a move perfectly during training. She was 6 years old. He apparently hadn’t punished her enough and followed her into the showers with his batons. Said batons had a high voltage of electricity, which he had fun using while she was soaking wet from the water falling on her skin. Her fingers traced the now stretched scars left by the electric batons, almost like a reminder to watch her back and lock doors behind herself.

The water was cold, like it always was. They never would waste hot water on such a thing as their weapon cleaning herself. That would be insane. She cleaned herself up in five minutes and dried herself with a worn towel in the drawers, before changing into a new training uniform that was on the shelves. It was her size, since that locker room was for the Soldiers, while the guards had their own locker room and showers.

Once she was done, she walked out of the locker room and placed everything back to their usual places, before grabbing her duffle bag and walking out of the training room. She dropped her duffle bag off in her cell and went to the only official office she had ever been in: her handler’s. She knew he had a computer in there, and had data that even the computer room didn’t. 

She hacked her way through the password-protected device and encrypted hard-drive. They were the ones to teach her how to hack, so in a way, her doing this at that moment was in some way their fault. 

She opened up the drive and searched for the information on the evac. There were a few files on the subject, so she read them all, taking her time so as to not miss anything. Apparently the Insight project - whatever that was - had failed due to Captain America and his friends deactivating… helicarriers… and the Captain winning a fight against the OG Winter Soldier. After the fight, it was said that the Soldier abandoned Hydra.

She closed the tabs and the computer before she decided to wander the halls of her level until she got tired and walked to her cell for some sleep.

The rest of the week was pretty much the same, she would look around the base, explore the place. She explored the third floor slowly, stopping at almost every room; it was offices and there was a cage for fighting - she guessed - and a medical room. That floor was mostly closed down, except for the medical room, which seemed more renovated than the rest of the level. She took a few days to look around that floor, take inventory of the two storage rooms and look into all the offices and bunks. 

It was only at the end of the week that she finally went up to the first floor on the top. That place held a lot of bad memories, and most of the memories she managed to get back.

She went into the wipe room first, observing the equipment in there with a clear mind, for the first time. She noticed a lot of things. It was old, like it hadn’t been modified in at least a decade, though since it worked there was no need to modify it further. 

The device itself was not appealing at all, and for a moment she wondered how badly it would hurt to get her mind wiped with this. Her first full memory may have been from a mind wipe, but Daisy was sure that the pain she felt in the dream was nothing compared to the real thing, and she was hoping that she would never have to find out.

She spent a few more minutes looking around the room, before she moved on to the bunker.

Daisy wasn’t sure what she expected from the bunker, but what she saw wasn’t exactly it. She did expect a large room that could probably take a lot of hits, and she knew there were tubes from some blueprints she’d found in her search, but the size of the room and what the tubes looked like were not something she really expected. She thought the tubes would look more like the one she saw the Winter Soldier in once or twice, but they were bigger and the Soldiers inside were sitting. She could also see a viewing room of sorts up on the wall, and she guessed it was accessible from outside the bunker. To test it out, she sent a powerful vibration in the direction of the viewing room, but all it did was rattle the bunker without leaving a scratch on the wall. Hydra was always prepared for anything. That was something Daisy could expect with or without her memories of her missions.

After that, she spent the next two months falling into a routine for herself: wake up early, do her run on the treadmill for about two hours - she didn’t know the time, but she took a guess - then she would make herself porridge - which was a pain to learn how to make - before going to train until she would eat again.

As it turned out, Daisy wasn’t meant to have a routine, as the systems flagged a presence entering the base two months after the evacuation. She went to grab all her things, just in case the newcomer was hostile. She didn’t want to take any chances, since everyone who knew about the base was Hydra or on the run.

Chapter Text

June 2016

Daisy had many interrupted nights since she was alone. Well, many I mean that almost every night she had nightmares that forced her to wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. That night was no different, however. The brunette was restless in her sleep, rolling around on the mattress, unable to stay still, even in her dreams.

Daisy woke up suddenly, having heard movement from the side of her room. She was on her feet in seconds, hand raised in the direction of the sound to send a shockwave into the assailant. Whoever they were, they were fast, probably as well trained as her. Maybe it was Hydra, she had always imagined they would send someone in the facility to come bring her back, or maybe it was the Red Room, and they were working with Hydra again, who decided she needed to become more compliant? She knew what Drakov did to his Widows. She knew they were forced into compliance through some special device or surgery, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen to herself.

She suddenly felt a presence behind her, and turned around briskly. “Bucky? What are you doing here?” she asked him, but he didn’t reply, his face as cold as the last time she saw him. He then unholstered his gun, aiming directly at her head. Instinctively, Daisy held up her hand, forcing the vibrations in the gun to shake until the weapon had imploded in her father’s hand. He wasn’t done, however, because a moment later, he was throwing a knife at her. It would have lodged itself into her throat had she not dodged the attack and used her vibrations to deflect the blade to hit the wall behind her.

Before Bucky could attack her any further, Daisy ran and rolled over her bed, grabbing the gun hidden under it at the other side. She twisted herself so that when she landed, she was aiming her gun at Bucky. She knew the magazine only had six bullets left, including the one currently lodged in the chamber, and that her extra charger was in the drawer of the desk near her father. All that meant she was clearly fucked, since she would need more than six bullets to stop a serum-powered assassin like the Original Winter Soldier. That was what she had, so that was what she would use to survive. She pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, but Bucky held up his metal arm and deflected all the bullets she aimed at him while he walked towards her. It wasn’t long before the magazine was empty, and Bucky was in her face. 

The next thing she knew, her back was pushed into the wall behind her and a metal arm was gripping her throat. She tried to unclasp his hand with both of hers, but his metal limb wouldn’t budge as it gripped and pushed her in the wall. Daisy coughed and breathed deeply, shakily, trying to get air into her lungs, but Bucky’s hand kept tightening, so her slow, deep breaths morphed into wheezes. She knew it was coming, the black dots appearing in her vision a strong indicator that the lack of air had reached her brain. Daisy continued to struggle against his grip, wheezing around his tight fingers and kicking into his chest. She even tried sending vibrations into his arm, but it barely did anything other than anger him. “Dad-” she managed to wheeze out, as the black spots became bigger and she slowly lost sight of her father. Daisy slowly stopped struggling as her body went limp, and everything went black, her last thought going to how this might have been for the best, her never getting the chance to see the real world.

Daisy opened her eyes as she woke up with a start, coughing violently and her hands going directly to her throat on instinct. The room shook ever so slightly. It was just a dream, she repeated to herself. A horrible, dangerous nightmare that could have led her to taking down the base if she had less control than she did, but it was still a dream. Rationally, she knew Bucky was out of Hydra’s control, as the news seemed to report, but the back of her mind couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever send someone to get her back, or even kill her.

They knew who she was, what she could do, so if the news that she’d gone rogue went up to the Hydra Head in charge of her program, then they could order her dead. She had been training to be better than her father, Romanoff, all the Widows and Winter Soldiers and Hydra agents that came after them, but if Hydra thought of her as a liability instead of an asset, she was done. Well, she wasn’t an asset anymore, she didn’t want to be anyone’s weapon. She just wanted to live her life, be normal, and she spent the past 2 months doing research on that.

She ended up watching some action movies in her free time, and some teenage girl movies, to see what girls her age were like, according to the media. There were many action movies that were good, like Robocop, John Wick, the Fast and Furious movie series, Mission: Impossible 3, and the new James Bond movies. There were also some teenager movies, like the Twilight movie series that were ok, and there were some pretty good ones, like 21 Jump Street, the DUFF, Pitch Perfect and Ender’s Game. Daisy took notes and even practiced some lines that they said in more than one movie. Usually, while she watched either an action movie or a teen movie, Daisy would have some vodka or other kinds of foods the Hydra guards brought with them from the mainland that she wasn’t allowed to have.

She watched every footage from the Avengers that she could find, trying to see them work. Every Hydra agent she met - and could remember - told her the Avengers were a threat to the safety of the organization, as well as national security. Now that she thought of it more clearly, however, Daisy knew they couldn’t care less about national security, only furthering their own personal agenda.

From what she could tell, the Avengers cared about the civilians they protected. There was still collateral damage, but they still cared about that, and they even seemed sad about the losses, from what she could tell. In New York, people died, but there would have been more had the heroes not stopped the alien threat. It was the same thing in Sokovia, Lagos, and all the other places where the Avengers fought. Daisy knew Hydra didn’t care about collateral damage, since in all the missions she remembered taking, she was told to kill any and all witnesses. No one could know what had happened, especially when it was staged to look like something else.

Appearance was everything, especially when the target was a politician or a high ranking military person. One or two of her own victims were high standing politicians from various countries that were against Hydra’s views. Well, all of her victims that she remembered - and probably those she didn’t - were people that were against Hydra’s views and said something about it. Many times, it was the CEO of big companies around the world, or high ranking military officials, or politicians in high places. They may not have been from the same country, but the only thing they had in common was that they all spoke against something Hydra most certainly wanted.

While she observed the Avengers, Daisy looked over their fight patterns and anything else that could catch her eye, as a young highly trained assassin.

She was never given footage of the Battle, but she found it during her research. It was mostly news coverage after the attack and some footage from some cowboy news cameramen. Daisy also found footage of the Fall of SHIELD, with the fights between Captain America and the Winter Soldier. The entire thing with the Insight Carriers was also filmed, with the fight between Rogers, Wilson - who was a friend of the Captain’s - and Romanoff against Hydra. Wilson had apparently joined Romanoff and Rogers when the duo were on the run from Hydra agents within SHIELD.

Wilson was a pretty good fighter, with clear military experience and a good handle on his mechanical wings. According to his files, he was on a few tours with a unit that used those wings in combat situations, and his superior officers spoke very highly of him during his time on duty. 

After finding the location of the files in the data dump Romanoff did to expose Hydra - which she found thanks to a deposition the government did with the Black Widow herself, Daisy used them to research all patterns of each Avenger, as well as their mental abilities. The brunette was very impressed with Romanoff’s skills with a computer - she had encrypted the higher levels of files. Luckily for Daisy, she was far better. She hacked through most of the encrypted files, only taking her about a month to hack and read them. It only took her that long because the highest level encryptions were better than the other ones and the files were quite extensive, so she took her time reading them. She quite enjoyed reading in detail every mission the Hawk and Widow worked on. She didn’t take as much interest in the other agents, except maybe Rogers, who did a few missions with SHIELD before its fall. If she was being honest, Budapest was interesting enough to read about. No wonder it had been swept off under the rug and they never spoke of it. Ever. Daisy only knew that no one spoke of that mission because of the level of encryption it took to cover the file as well as the notes taken on it. It was also the first mission Romanoff ever did as a SHIELD agent to prove that she was really on their side, and apparently killing Dreykov was proof enough. She knew he was still alive after that explosion, like his daughter, but reading the mission report made her wish he was dead. It would have been a glorious end to the Red Room, if only it were true. Sadly, it wasn’t and Hydra sent her to train with the Widows sometimes even after that.

After all those hours every week watching their fighting patterns, Daisy was sure she could predict one of their moves before they performed it. And if she really tried, Daisy could probably predict actions outside the battlefield from reading their files, but that was harder, as she didn’t have all the variables for that type of assessment. And some of them, like Romanoff and Barton, were harder to assess either on or off the battlefield, as they were very unpredictable.

When she watched videos of the Avengers, Bucky, or even a movie, she would often take notes in various books she had snatched from her handler’s office. Mostly, it was notes on behavior in the case of teen movies, since she wanted to remember these things and study them if she ever got the chance to be in a circumstance where she had to act normal. She also took notes of the Avengers’ fighting styles, what they knew, their weaknesses and other points that could be useful.

Two months of being alone, Daisy’s mind went through some pretty dark patches. Her food and water supplies were still very high, and by her calculations, she could survive for 2 years in there without needing anything, but that was one of the things that scared her; being alone there for that long. Granted, she could leave whenever she wanted, but where would she go? What would she do? She didn’t know anything outside of Hydra so where would that leave her? What about her father? If he even knew about her, would he be willing to help her? Would he accept her into his life? Was it all even worth it in the end? With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, was it all still worth it to live and escape?

And that was why she hadn’t left yet, not just because she wanted to study teenage girls’ behavior in movies and research her family, she’d done a lot of that already, and she could study more outside of the base. It was because she was afraid of not having anywhere to go once she stepped foot wherever she ended up landing in.

That was when she heard movement coming from outside. Being close to the entrance meant that she could hear outside better, and that was how she heard the engine heading over to the base. She wasn’t sure if it was good or not, so she needed to get out of the open area to assess the situation. She ran to the elevator and headed to the computer room. She cut the electricity and heat before going to her room and changing into her mission suit. If she was honest, she never thought she would be able to wear it outside of Hydra missions, but here she was now, placing various weapons onto herself, even hiding some from view under the cloth. She went back up to the first level and hid inside the vents so the intruders wouldn’t hear or see her. Daisy knew the layout of the base by heart, and her powers were tuned to her environment, meaning that the newcomers wouldn’t be able to so much as twitch without her knowledge.

She laid in front of the trap of the vent near the entrance, waiting to see who would come into a Hydra base. The door opened to reveal one man, and she could sense the gun on him, smelling the gunpowder from it. When he moved, so did she. He headed into the bunker and she had to exit the vents to follow him, since there were none inside the room. Daisy watched as he opened the cryo tubes freezing the failed soldiers into place. The bunker’s power wasn’t exactly with the rest of the base, so the man could easily flip it on from the entrance to the room. However, before they could wake up, he shot each one in the head and froze them again. 

Daisy watched him from her hiding spot, trying to not make a sound, as he left the bunker for the observation room, as if waiting for something - or someone. She slipped back into the vents outside of the bunker, using the time to think about her next move or what his plans were.

Though the only thing she was wondering about at the moment was why in the hell would some random man show up to a Hydra base in the middle of nowhere Siberia and kill five failed Winter Soldier assassins? The answer could be anything, but Daisy took a good guess in saying that it was either for bait or he was hunting down Winter Soldiers to kill them, making sure no one would be able to control them to bring down cities. Either way, Daisy was fine with staying where she was, hidden in the vents.

That thought, however, didn’t last long - maybe an hour - as the front door opened again. The young brunette moved as quietly as she could and headed to the entrance to see who it was. At first, she could only see their backs - which were rather familiar, all things considered - until they turned and Daisy saw their faces. Inside the hellish Siberian Hydra base was Captain freaking America and her father - James Bucky Barnes. She had dreamed of meeting him since the day she found out who her father was, but now he was there, and Daisy had a hard time believing it. This couldn’t be possible… unless… unless she was right and that other guy had used the failed Soldiers as bait. But they weren’t any regular kinds of bait, they were bait to get Bucky and Rogers there. 

Maybe there was hope for her after all, maybe she finally found a reason to get out of there, and live normally. Or as normally as she could be, considering she was a 16-year-old assassin with enhanced abilities and superpowers.

But… she couldn’t do anything… she couldn’t just jump down and ask them to take her with them, she was an unknown to the former members of the Avengers, so if they did see her, they probably would engage her in a fight. She may look like a child, but that was her advantage, and she was also a Hydra agent, so if people knew that, they would probably be cautious. Unless they were Captain America or maybe Stark. They would probably lower their guard long enough to give her an opening, not that she would use it.

Deciding to take a chance, she went to go see them. Despite that, she still took a knife from one of her hidden compartments and slid it under the tight-skinned sleeve of her shirt for easy access. No one can be too careful, even when meeting Captain America for the first time as well as a lucid Bucky Barnes.

She slipped out from the vents behind them, forcing a thudding sound as she fell on her feet. She was so used to slip out unnoticed and without making a sound, it felt strange to actually make herself noticed by the newcomers.

Bucky and Captain America turned to look at her when she landed, Bucky aiming a gun at her head. “Wait, woah, don’t shoot,” she called out, raising her hands in surrender, though she was ready to grab her hidden knife at any moment. Her voice was also heavily accented, since English wasn’t her first language. She knew many languages, but she still had trouble removing the Russian twist in her tone, since speaking in anything but Russian in front of the guards was prohibited. Unless it was language training, which didn’t happen often.

"Calm down, she's just a kid," Rogers told Bucky with a soothing tone a moment later.

"She's a Winter Soldier. You have no idea what she’s capable of," Barnes said, his voice tight with tension, and his gun still aimed at her head.

"I'm also your daughter, dipshit. You can call me Daisy though," Daisy told him, smirking, and the shock was palpable in the hallway. She then turned to Rogers after a long silence, and was tired of the awkwardness. "Hey, Cap." 

"Only my friends call me that," Steve almost spat, though it was pretty justified, considering that he was still in shock at finding out that Bucky had a kid.

"Or should I call you Uncle Steve?" Daisy asked, her tone slightly snarky, something she picked up from watching way too many American high school movies.

"No, that's even worse," Bucky muttered, and Daisy sighed.

“Okay, moving on, there’s some guy that went to the bunker, and I’m going to guess you are here for him.”

“How long has he been here?” Steve asked, and Daisy thought about it for a moment.

“I do not own a watch, but I would say a few hours, give or take.”

“Have you been here since I left and they cut the program?” Bucky asked, a hint of concern lacing his tone, which Daisy didn’t quite understand.

“Yes, I have. They continued to run me, though, and from what I remember, the brainwashing started to fail 6 months ago so they had to recondition me more often. I rebelled 2 months ago and killed half the officers, let the other half escape.”

“How did you survive for 2 months?” Rogers asked, and Daisy rolled her eyes. If the man was as bad as she saw, then they didn’t have time for a Q&A with daddy dearest and his best friend.

“Sorry Captain Rogers, but we don’t have time for this. Isn’t your guy planning on doing bad things?” 

“We’ll talk later, then.” Daisy nodded at her father’s words, and they headed down the hallway to the bunker.

As they walked, they heard a loud thud from behind them, making the trio turn around. Steve was bent on one knee with his shield held protectively in front of him and Bucky was behind him, hiding behind Steve and his shield, his gun aimed at the door now in front of them. Daisy had gripped her pistol, but Bucky grabbed her and made her hide next to him, so the person wouldn’t see her. The young brunette glared at her father and forced herself to stand next to him, aiming her gun at the door as well. “You ready?” Rogers asked, and Daisy almost heard her father tightening his grip on his gun.

“Yeah.”

“Sure.” Suddenly, the doors were forced open by the Iron Man, which made Steve look at the tin-can-wearing billionaire in surprise. Stark walked over to them and retracted his helmet.

“You seem a little defensive,” Iron Man said, while Bucky and Daisy kept their guns on him and Rogers went over to Stark hesitantly.

“It's been a long day.” Stark seemed to notice Daisy, at that moment, when Steve moved, and eyed her suspiciously.

“Who’s the kid, Rogers? You collecting friends, now?”

“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you but I would be afraid of boosting your ego, Mr. Stark.”

"How do you know me?" Stark asked, confused, and even Steve and Bucky looked a little confused, but not surprised.

"I watched RoboCop," Daisy spat. She wasn’t a fan of Stark’s and would never be. She didn’t really like the way he worked and how he was before the suit.

"I'm seeing a resemblance here, Manchurian Candidate. Please don't tell me that she's your spawn," Stark said, looking over to Bucky, as he spoke, and Bucky still had his gun up, like Daisy did. “At ease, Soldier. I'm not currently after you.”

“Then why are you here?” Steve carefully asked.

“Could be your story's not so crazy. Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here. I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself.”

“Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork,” Steve told Tony, before lowering his shield. “It's good to see you, Tony.”

“You too, Cap,” Tony said, nodding, before turning to Bucky. “Hey, Manchurian Candidate, the spawn, you're killing me. There's a truce here. You can drop…” Steve signaled for Bucky to lower his gun, and he did so, but not before nodding to Daisy to do the same with her pistol. She glared at Stark, but did as Bucky told her to, placing her gun back into its holster.

The four of them walked cautiously down the corridor and headed to the bunker. Iron Man led the three others into the bunker , having reengaged his helmet and face plate.

“I got heat signatures,” Stark told them, and Daisy already knew how many there were, having seen the whole thing before the Avengers arrived.

“How many?” Rogers asked Stark.

“Uh, one.”

When they entered the bunker, the lights came on; apparently the guy that was there figured out how the controls worked in the Bunker. They saw the capsules with their hazy, yellow mist that descended in them.

“ If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep, ” a heavily accented voice sounded in the speakers, and the three men with Daisy noticed that they had all been shot in the head, but didn’t notice the young girl’s growl as she looked at the failed Soldiers. She had seen that man kill those Soldiers and he seemed so proud of his actions, it made her angry. “ Did you really think I wanted more of you? ”

“What the hell?” Bucky asked, shocked and confused.

“ I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here. ” 

“It’s obviously a trap, he was using these guys as bait. Whatever he has planned, can’t be good,” Daisy muttered, loud enough for only Rogers and Bucky to hear her.

Suddenly, the man behind the voice appeared inside the viewing room. In a futile attempt at breaking the glass separating them from the viewing room, Rogers threw his shield at it, but it bounced back to him without making a dent in the glass. “ Please, Captain. The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets. ”

“I'm betting I could beat that,” Stark pointed out, and Daisy clenched her fist; it would be so easy to shut him up then and there… but she had to show restraint.

“ Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark. Given time. But then you'd never know why you came. ”

“You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?”

“I thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realized… there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw.”

“We need to leave. Now,” Daisy said, her voice barely above a whisper and laced with a murderous tone that had Bucky look at her with realization;  she had seen that man kill the failed Soldiers. Steve, however, ignored the young girl, looking at the man in the viewing room.

“You're Sokovian. Is that what this is about?”

“ Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No. I'm here because I made a promise. ”

“You lost someone?” Steve asked, and the man looked grave, clicking his tongue.

“ I lost everyone. And so will you. ” The screen near them flickered open and a surveillance footage from December 16th 1991. “ An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That's dead… forever. ”

Daisy saw Stark look at the screen anxiously, and it was obvious to the girl that he knew what the screen showed.

“I know that road. What is this?”

On the screen, they saw a car drive down a road before it suddenly hit spikes, piercing the tiers and making it crash in a tree next to the road. A few seconds later, a motorcycle rolled to the car and the Winter Soldier got off the bike. Daisy eyed Stark from the corner of her eye, while also watching the screen, seeing the driver lay on the ground next to the car. The driver was Stark’s father, Howard. “ Help my wife. Please. Help, ” Howard begged the Winter Soldier, but the assassin walked over to him and hoisted him up by the hair. He stared at Howard’s bloody face, while the scientist stared back pleadingly. It was then that recognition flickered in his eyes. “ Sergeant Barnes? ”

“ Howard! ” Maria Stark called out from somewhere in the car, which Daisy guessed was the passenger side.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Stark glare at her father. She silently glared at him for a moment, before turning back to the screen, looking at the Winter Soldier punching Howard hard in the face with his metal fist.

“ Howard! ” Maria begged again.

Howard slumped dead on the surveillance footage. The Winter Soldier carefully placed him in the driver’s seat, adjusting his head against the steering wheel. Daisy stared at the screen as the Soldier walked around to the passenger seat and gripped Maria’s throat, his face expressionless. Daisy heard Stark’s breath hitch at the sight of Bucky - as the Soldier - killing his mother. Back on the screen, the Soldier walked back away from the car and shot the surveillance camera.

 Daisy turned away from the screen as it went black, looking between her father and Stark. Tony lunged over to Bucky, but Steve stopped him.

“Tony. Tony,” Steve said, trying to calm the billionaire down. Stark was consumed with grief, his eyes glistening with tears, as he turned to look at Rogers.

“Did you know?”

“I didn't know it was him,” Steve told him, but Daisy knew he was lying, from the changes in the rhythm of his heartbeat, and clearly Stark caught the lie as well.

“Don't bullshit me, Rogers! Did you know?”

“Yes.”

Stark took a step back at that, his chin twitching slightly upwards. He reengaged his helmet, and punched Rogers to the floor, deflecting gunfire from Bucky and disarming the former Soldier, who motioned to punch Stark, but he grabbed the Soldier’s metal arm. Daisy’s head whipped to where the Sokovian man had been, feeling him moving away from the viewing room, and she ignored the fighting around her to follow him. That man, whatever his name was - she never really got that from Rogers or Bucky - had killed the failed Soldiers and bombed the UN in Vienna while making it look like it was her father’s doing. He basically tried to ruin Bucky’s life.

He had done all that, and yet he was now the reason why she had the chance to go outside of Siberia for the first time in a long time. He was also the reason she was reunited with her father. For that, she would always be grateful to him, and she was going to thank him, as well. By killing him very, very slowly. She did need to practice her skills more.

The Sokovian had wandered outside the base, and Daisy followed him, her desire to kill him making her walk faster. She silently walked over to where he was sitting on a rock, near the main door. Upon approaching him, Daisy noticed his hands were slightly shaking, one of them gripped his phone. Without saying a word, she held up a hand and quaked him to the ground, making him yelp in surprise. “I-I saw you with Captain Rogers, Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes.” So, he recognized her. “Wh-who are you?” he asked her, confused.

“Quake,” she spat. He didn’t deserve to know the name her mother chose for her. She could feel a presence approaching them, but they were still inside, maybe they would be there soon enough. “Why are you doing all this…” She cocked her head ever so slightly. “I don’t actually know your name.”

“Helmut Zemo. As for your first question, well… my father lived outside the city. I thought we would be safe there. My son was excited. He could see the Iron Man from the car window. I told my wife, ‘Don't worry. They are fighting in the city. We're miles from harm.’ When the dust cleared… and the screaming stopped. It took me two days until I found their bodies. My father… still holding my wife and son in his arms. And the Avengers? They went home. I knew I couldn't kill them. More powerful men than me have tried. But, if I could get them to kill each other…”

“Then they could never get back up even if they survived… the Avengers would be gone forever and their reputation unsalvageable. One hell of a plan. They’re fighting each other as we speak,” Daisy told Zemo, and the man had a smirk on his face when she was done talking.

“Then that means my job here is done. I can finally join my family in the afterlife.” That was when she noticed the gun for the first time. She chastised herself for not sensing it before then, but she was too preoccupied with hearing his explanation. Daisy flicked her wrist and the gun imploded in Zemo’s hand, making him yelp in surprise once again.

“Oh no, no,” Daisy said, camly, her tone of voice so emotionless that it made Zemo gulp loudly in fear. “You thought I would just listen to your little explanation and let you kill yourself? No. I have to thank you first. Then, you’ll only wish you had died before I showed up.”

“What do you mean?” Zemo asked, his voice shaking.

“Like I said, I wanted to thank you. Because thanks to you, I get to reunite with some long lost family,” Daisy told him, and she held up her hand towards him, applying a quake inside his throat to block off the air. It wasn’t long before Zemo was choking and trying to get air inside his lungs. “You thought you would earn my sympathy by telling me all this? Maybe get me to grant you a merciful death? No, Mr. Zemo. I spent 14 years of my life getting tortured by Hydra soldiers, getting trained to become better than the Original Winter Soldier, getting told that if I wasn’t compliant, they would send me somewhere that would do it for them. Sympathy is not something I give to people who have let rage consume them because of lost love. Not when love was something you’ve always had without really trying.”

“The living aren’t done with him yet. Let him get the justice he deserves,” a voice sounded from behind her, but Daisy ignored it. She felt someone walk behind her, and while she kept on suffocating Zemo, she let parts of her vibrations identify the person behind her. She had heard that voice before, while in her internet wanderings, so the IDing with her vibrations was simply a formality.

“Prince T’Challa. Or should I say King? I’m sorry about your father, he seemed like a good man.”

“I am still a Prince, for now. And thank you, he was a good man, and King. I do have to ask again that you release him, though.”

“So he can get the justice he deserves?” Daisy asked, skeptically, as she repeated the words he had used before. When he nodded, she continued. “Sorry to disappoint you, Prince T’Challa, but what he deserves is to die slowly and painfully.”

“I almost killed the wrong man, because of him. Vengeance consumed him, and it is consuming you, right now, like it is also consuming the Avengers. I am done letting it consume me.”

“Vengeance is not something I have the luxury of carrying. I am only here to deliver what he deserves.”

“And justice will come, I assure you…”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Daisy finally said, after a moment. She released the pressure she had on Zemo’s throat, only for him to start coughing loudly. She sighed and sent a blast at his head, knocking him out. “I’m Daisy, by the way. My father is Bucky Barnes.”

It was the next day that Rogers, Bucky and Daisy found themselves in Wakanda. T’Challa had invited them into his home when they got out of the Siberian base to give them protection. The government was still looking for the Captain and Barnes, and the way Wakanda was hidden could prove useful to them all for a while.

Daisy didn’t know what to do about the existence of her own trigger words. If a Sokovian man could get access to Bucky’s trigger words, then who knew if someone could do the same with hers. Bucky and Steve didn’t know about them, but she knew they needed to know. She had pushed those thoughts down for the past few months, they couldn’t just pop up the second she was rescued.

Could they?