1943

[theycalledmeacurse]

World War II. 1943. Even with everything she'd seen, everything she'd learned from the people she'd absorbed in this time, it was still so hard to believe. It shouldn't have been with the life she'd lived thus far, but it was.

Something had gone wrong. She'd felt the timeline resetting, had seen the Sentinels disappear from the room as their universe shifted, and then... Gunfire. Explosions. Shouting. More war.

She'd been taken with the rest of the prisoners to a compound, put into cells with soldiers who were exhausted and shell-shocked, and she'd watched as one by one their numbers had decreased, as those who were sick or weak and unable to work were taken away and never seen again. And then it had been her turn, and all it had taken was one man grabbing her face to get a better look at her before they'd found out she was different.

There were questions and tests. So many tests. She was useful to them, a rare find. There had been talk of putting her into a program, erasing her mind and starting over to make a perfect weapon. That's when they'd strapped her to that table, when she'd fought like a wild animal until they'd had to drug her. The interrogations had started then, the weasely little scientist wanting information before he began the full process, but that, if nothing else, had been familiar to her in the most terrible ways. So she'd resisted and fed him lie after lie, making things up as she went and pretending that the pain was getting to her when by then she'd barely felt any of it.

And then... she'd been rescued. Not because she could be of use to the mission, but because she was a person. Because a fellow prisoner had thought she deserved to not be left there to die. It was more than her friends had ever done for her.

When they'd gotten back to the military camp, there had been more questions, and suspicions from everyone about the strange woman who had seemed so valuable to HYDRA. Perhaps she was a plant, a double agent working for the enemy. She hadn't told them everything about who she was, but she'd told them enough, and eventually... they'd believed her. Or they'd seemed to, anyway. She'd seen the truth in their eyes - she was a danger to everyone if she stayed, but she might still be of some use to them on the front, and if she did turn out to be a spy, she could be dealt with there easily enough.

That was how she'd ended up out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sleeping men who had been asked to trust her, to work with her so she could get information from the enemy while they did the work they'd been assigned. She shifted on the spot on the ground, legs curled up under her as she stared at the small fire they'd decided to build because they were far enough away from the enemy to risk chasing away a bit of the cold. Only a few of the Howling Commandos were still awake to notice the way she played with the gloves she'd been provided as part of her uniform, tugging and adjusting them over and over. A nervous, comforting habit to help her face a world that wasn't her own, and a war she should never have had to see in anything but memory.

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[on_ur_left]

When Steve had infiltrated the Hydra base, his main thought had been to find Bucky. Of course when he'd discovered the other soldiers locked up in those cages, he'd freed them, but it hadn't been entirely altruistic on his part. He knew the men would want to tear the place apart, which wasn't a bad goal by any means, and if they were raising hell, he'd be more easily able to slip around undetected and find Bucky.

Find Bucky he did, and not a moment too soon. And he'd finally met and confronted Schmidt, the man he held personally accountable for Erskine's death, as well as Bucky's torture. Their violent encounter had been cut far too short, when Schmidt's lackey had pulled back the walkway they'd been on. After that, it had only been a matter of getting back where they needed to, to exit the building.

Except passing by those rooms again, similar to Bucky's and obviously having also housed 'subjects', Bucky had stopped dead at one door, still left half-open. Steve had shouted at him that they had to go, the place was gonna explode at this rate, but Bucky had just shaken his head and dived into the room. Cursing his best friend's damn-fool head, Steve had raced back and followed him in. What he saw...

Bucky had already been helping the woman off the table, but Steve took in details at an alarming rate now: he saw the cuffs left dangling from the table, bloody along the edges even though they were leather, from where she'd fought so hard against them; the tray of instruments pushed to one side; the way she shied away from Bucky as soon as she was remotely steady. Steve had shaken his head. They couldn't leave her there, but there was no way she'd be able to keep up with them if they had any hope of getting out of there before the weapons stores went up.

Steve had gone over and swooped her into his arms in one quick motion, telling her to hold on, then jerking his head at Bucky and taking off through the compound. He hadn't thought twice about Bucky being able to keep up; he wasn't moving as quickly as he could, because of his passenger, and Bucky had been keeping pace with him as soon as he'd been freed and was re-oriented.

Once they'd begun the long trek back to base, he'd put the woman down, but not a lot was said at the time, by anyone really. They knew they were behind enemy lines still, and even after they'd crossed into allied territory, the journey was still dangerous. They could be ambushed at any time, and it had subdued a lot of the men. Reaching base had been rather anticlimactic, although Colonel Philips all but praising him for his actions (in his own backhanded fashion) had been nice.

Steve was ashamed to admit that for a while, he hadn't even thought about the woman they'd rescued. He'd been too focused on Bucky, and then debriefing with the war room, giving them intel from the base, the map he'd seen, giving Howard that strange weapons energy pack... His mind could keep track of a lot, but she'd been pushed to the back, mostly because he didn't know her.

It was Bucky who brought her back to the forefront of his thoughts; Bucky who told him they were questioning her, interrogating her, incensed at the way they were treating her. Steve had had words with Philips over it. Eventually an agreement had been made. Nobody at the base trusted her, and Philips explained why - Steve didn't believe for a second that she was a spy, but he understood their hesitation when he learned about her... gift. Philips basically told Steve he had to take her onto his team, newly christened the Howling Commandos, both because she could be an asset to them - and because none of the other soldiers in his units trusted her enough to be around her, and he didn't want any 'accidents' happening.

If that was what he thought might happen, Steve wanted her with him whether she'd be an asset or not.

Now, he lay by the small fire in their current little camp, eyes closed but sleep a far way off. He didn't need much sleep, and he hadn't expended enough energy to warrant it yet. His eyes were closed, but that only made his already acute hearing even sharper, and he could hear the smallest rustle of leaves, bodies shifting around... and the lowest murmur of Bucky's voice. He'd gone over to sit by the gal, Rogue.

"Hey. Mind some company?"

Steve cracked an eye open, catching a glimpse of Bucky settling beside Rogue, about half an arm's length away and facing away from her, staring out into the blackness of the surrounding trees.