Chapter Text
*****
“Are you ready?”
Brock’s head shot up from the file full of pictures that he was pretending to look at and sighted one of the last men he expected to see here in this base. His smooth jaw worked, and he had to resist the urge to rise and salute. That quickly gave way to the itch to run his fingers through his lightly greased dark hair, but he knew if he messed it up again, the technician in charge of his appearance would probably slap him.
He instead snapped the file folder closed on the old pictures and set it aside, rising to his feet slowly. His shoes weren’t even that comfortable, but they were a stiff leather that he was going to have to get used to. “Sir, ready as I’ll ever be.”
“You certainly look the part.” He suspected it was supposed to be a compliment, but his grated nerves couldn’t accept it. He was in suspenders after all, and he looked like some rich preppy drop-out. “You should fix your tie.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
He reached up and adjusted his dark green rough cotton tie from being loose and hanging down his chest to up snug at his throat. He flexed his hands, feeling the pull of the cuffs around his wrists and wanting to give anything to be out of this outfit. He itched for the freedom of movement that came with soft cottons or even the rough pull of his old military fatigues.
“Sir…”
“Not now, Brock. Concentrate on what you’re about to achieve, even if it is nothing more than the start of your mission,” the older man said. He was appraised with a glance. “If you succeed, you will be a hero. If you fail, well… I heard you were called a disappointment enough not to have to hear it from me.”
The muscles along his jawline tightened, and he stood rigid but refusing to rise to the bait. The best day of his life had come when that asshole of a father had finally earned enough of a savage drunken reputation to be found in a ditch choked on puke and a single shot to the head. He wasn’t going to look back on the time before then as anything but a long session to brutalize the need for independence at an early age. He had taken that and run with it, and he wasn’t going to look back on anything. He had to look forward.
There was a certain irony of that thought with what he was striving to do now. His old man wasn’t even going to exist once he was finished; he’d make certain the possibility was wiped clean. It wasn’t revenge; it was a salute to how much better the gene pool would be without that bloodline dirtying it up.
The Secretary stepped into the small private room, crossing the distance with a cool certainty that always aired around the man. He envied that, but he was a man of action who used glib when necessary. The Secretary had a charisma unmatched, the kind of smile that was both warm and inviting, but the hard hand that suggested action and demanded respect. The Secretary was not a man to cross, and he had never had the misfortune of being on the strawberry blond’s bad side. Always, he strove to prove himself as a brother, cousin, and son of HYDRA.
It was a far better family than he had ever had. Brotherhood born in similar ideals, hard work and secret was hard to break.
Rumlow stiffened to attention when the Secretary’s hands rose and pulled at the stiff collar of his shirt, smoothing it over his tie. They were the same height, and he found it easier than it should be to stare the man in the eye like they were somehow equals. “You will succeed.”
“Sir,” he said, uncertain if the confidence was for him or for the Secretary. “There are others…”
The Secretary waved a hand as if dismissing pigeons. “Inferior in every way, and the Tesseract isn’t ready. As I hear it, it’s being temperamental again. Perhaps it doesn’t have the right guidance.”
Brock swallowed down a lump trying to form in his throat. “How many, if I may ask?”
“Two.”
Project Rewind had started with twenty-four men and women, and they were now apparently down to ten. The selection process had required certain characteristics in the candidates, and their education to get to this point had been intense memorization, physical training and improvisation. If their core group of twenty-four failed, the project would be abandoned for more favourable endeavors.
The selection to make the ‘prophetic walk’ as it was called was random. Fourteen had now made the walked and never returned. The remaining candidates had begun to talk after the sixth one had never came back, but they were committed to the cause and the potential for changing the world with their success. It was hard to fight down rumour when there was no information as to the hows and whys of the failure. The walks just continued.
The Secretary wasn’t part of this project. He wasn’t certain if the man’s interests were benign or malicious, though there was something to be said about the fact that this man had put his name into the pool to be chosen originally. The glory of HYDRA went to the victor to bring about a secure world order after all, and he knew that the heads of HYDRA were a vicious lot, intelligent, cunning, and determined to see years of dedication and hard work pay off with the ultimate prize.
“Do you believe this project will succeed, sir?” Brock, even at twenty-five years old, was not a man to sit around talking about the what ifs and the whens. Even he had his doubts though.
“I believe that the new world order will come into being with the right man being placed at the right time in the right place. You have doubts?” The Secretary gave him one of those smiles that encouraged confidence. “Come, walk with me, Brock.”
There was little choice in refusing, and he reasoned that he needed to get used to his hard leather shoes anyway. “This project has been in the making for four years,and we’re only on testing phase, but there’s talk…” he trailed off, knowing better than to speak ill of his superiors.
“Go on,” the Secretary encouraged as well as directed the pace of their walk down the hallway.
“If the twenty-four of us fail, the project is over and…” he took a pause to allow two technicians to pass them and move out of earshot. “Von Strucker is returning to Nuremberg to pursue other advancements for HYDRA.”
The Secretary continued them on their stroll, directing him down a different hallway with an arm across his shoulders, friendly, almost mentor-like. “Understand that what I’m about to tell you is top-secret intelligence, and not required background for your mission.” There was one of those potent pauses that the Secretary had long ago mastered. The grip across his shoulders tightened. “The Tesseract is not an object that HYDRA may keep long; the only reason this has at all been possible is because I have guided research away from its uses for a few years. However, interest always returns to it and so it should. The lease on it is almost up and if your project fails, you will be dead and it no longer your concern.”
He nodded his head, not particularly surprised to hear that the others who had made the walk were dead. He didn’t feel much for the loss despite having studied with most of them; he didn’t have strong ties with any of those people, though he respected them as fellow HYDRA members. In this game, it was every man for himself. However, he knew he was different because he wasn’t here for glory; he was here to make a difference that he believed in. Freedom from the illusion of freedom itself.
“When I make my walk, I’ll do everything in my power to succeed, sir,” he found himself saying. He didn’t know the Secretary well, but he wanted to expose his worth to this man more than the others. The strawberry blond had shown benign interest in him from time-to-time since he had joined HYDRA, which was more than most could say.
“Yes, I know. That’s what I like about you, Brock. You set your mind to something and it becomes your entire life-long ambition to see it done. You are in the best position to prove your merits,” the Secretary said. He felt himself flush with pleasure at the praise.
They were approaching another T-junction and he didn’t fight himself being directed to the right. He knew that it was towards the room where the Tesseract was being kept and where all the prophetic walks had taken place. He doubted he was being taken there without cause, and he glanced over at the Secretary.
“It’s not my day to walk,” he said simply.
“Your day comes when the heads of HYDRA say it is, or… when you take it yourself.” The Secretary stopped outside of the massively thick doors that served as the blockade between the hallway and the room beyond.
“Von Strucker decided our order would be random,” he remarked. He knew that the Baron was a high ranking man of HYDRA, one of the heads. Von Strucker also hated him because he was considered a low-born, dirty-blooded peasant.“He said I walk two days…”
“And if I tell you to walk today,” the Secretary suddenly said, stepping in front of him. Aging hands settled on his shoulders, caging him in though he felt no threat. “Would you walk if I ordered you to do it?”
This wasn’t the Secretary’s project. He would be going against everything that he had worked, fought and bled for. In the grand scheme of things, he was no more regarded than the next agent of his rank and he could be put into play at any moment. He could be put in position to die if ordered to, or he could be placed strategically to excel and move higher in the ranks. His own contributions were based on skill, intellect, guts and a bit of luck.
His jaw worked as he stared into the Secretary’s blue eyes. He knew that there was no doubt a kind of rivalry between the heads of HYDRA, that while they were united in purpose, they had enough ego to want it to be their name carved on the plaque that would mark the true head of HYDRA since Red Skull. For those of them as foot-soldiers, they were to be put in play as the heads saw fit.
“No,” he said simply. He took the immediate backhand across his cheek with just a simple inhale through his nose. “You’ve put me under Von Strucker as a candidate for Rewind. When it’s my time to walk, I walk.”
The Secretary regarded him and his pink cheek with an unreadable expression. He didn’t bother to try to puzzle it out, but he stiffened when the strawberry blond dropped hands to once again fuss with his collar and smooth his tie into place. He stood for it, even as the Secretary adjusted the straps of his suspenders. He even stood for his cuffs being adjusted without complaint, biding his time to respond to the man in front of him.
“You’re a good soldier,” the Secretary finally said.
“Thank you, sir,” he replied, nodding his head to the praise.
“To succeed, Agent Rumlow, you’re going to have to be more than a soldier. You’re gifted with the fact that not just air flows between your ears, and you have impeccable instincts for survival.” The Secretary was watching him intently. “You have to want this, and you have to lay all your guts on the line to take what is owed to you.”
Nothing was owed to him, yet the sheer idea was tantalizing. He wanted this opportunity badly, though it was difficult to wrap his mind around the sheer size and scale in which he would be working. He would literally be shaping the mission for himself, making judgements on the information that he had and picking the best path. He had to be prepared to make hard calls; he had to be prepared to give up everything to succeed. He liked to think himself prepared for that, but until he was in that position, he couldn’t know for certain.
The Secretary seemed to read that in his expression. “You will succeed if you set your mind to it. I would trust this to no one else.”
They both turned at the sound of hard-soled boots striking the floor and Baron Von Strucker was lining them up. The man looked slightly older than him, but he knew for a fact that there was something… off about the man. He stepped aside to allow the two heads to converse without his presence.
“I had heard you arrived, but I couldn’t believe zat you had zee ability to still slip away from your precious Department of State. You are still an old fox zen,” Von Strucker said with a heavy accent, lifting a hand to wave him away. “Alexander Pierce, a pleasure as always. A true comrade with impeccable bloodlines.”
Brock didn’t have a chance to walk away before the Secretary’s hand gripped his left elbow tightly. “Wolfgang, you know that I wouldn’t miss how close to success you are coming. I have backed this project from the beginning.”
“Yes, curious zat,” Von Strucker said, and the man’s cold gaze flicked to him, the scar on the man’s left cheek puckering with the narrowed eyes aimed at him. “However, success may be further off zan ve vant. Zee Tesseract acts like a fickle voman, always changing Her mind. She is misbehaving, but like any voman, give Her enough time and She’ll come around.”
Secretary Pierce offered a smile and glanced at the door behind them. “Why don’t you show me your set-up?”
There was a razor smile that the Baron wore, but if it had the ability to cut the Secretary, it didn’t work this time. Instead, Von Strucker gestured with a hand to the doors and pointedly pushed between himself and the Secretary to break the hold on his arm. He had his eyes averted when the cold glance of dismissal was passed to him and there was a warm hand between his shoulders a moment later as the Secretary firmly propelled him forward.
Brock had never experienced a power struggle where he was the object being pushed around. It was not something that he wanted to endure more than this. Von Strucker’s dislike of him was single-minded, but the Secretary’s sudden obvious preference was confusing. He suspected it was done to show Pierce had some control even in a project not in the older man’s hands.
The room was a vast circular one topped with a very specific dome to dispel excess energy produced during the test phase. There were large computer consoles lining most of the walls, large bulky machines that beeped, flashed and made soft information churning sounds. Large insulated piping and wires snaked the floor towards the monument of the entire operation situated in the very direct middle of the room and directly beneath the domed ceiling. While the flashing lights and switches no doubt were supposed to draw attention given that they were the main operation of the entire process, every pair of eyes were always somehow drawn to the center of it all.
In the very middle of the room was a complex metal contraption that looked more like a garden arbour than a gateway, which stood at least seven feet tall. There were intricate cables wrapped around the metal framework and great beehive like conductors that jutted out from the interior of the arbour, and, even from across the room, they buzzed softly with activity. Blue light occasionally snapped and shot towards the ground which might have been padded with some kind of industrial rubber to absorb electricity, but he was too far away to tell. The insulated wires added the colours reds, yellows, greens, blues and blacks like electrical vines just waiting for enough energy to bloom blue flowers of energy.
Ten feet behind the metal arbour was raised ring where fine wires held a glowing blue cube into place, the illusion of the fabled power object suspended magically in air just a new show of man’s tickled imagination. He knew with just a glance that the Tesseract was here, and it seemed like certain sacrilege to look at it directly. He did, eyeing the crackle of energy and the fact that four technicians were standing with fine rods poking at the wires that held the Tesseract in place. Each time a wire was touch, it was clear there was energy firing back with the way that the technician’s arm jerked to control the rod from shooting away to the side.
He was still being directed to a viewing room by the Secretary, and it seemed to him that Von Strucker had chosen to ignore his existence as a breach of carefully created protocols. Obviously, it wasn’t worth a break in careful friendly façade between the two heads present. He had no doubt that he would pay for this in some subtle way later.
He ascended the three stairs to the secure observation room and took a spot at the back of the small room that had only a communication console and monitoring equipment. He folded his arms across his chest and studied the layout of the room. Now that he had a better look, he could see black rubber ten feet on the other side of the arbour, obviously where the candidates stood.
“How many candidates have failed?” The Secretary already knew the answer. This was all pleasantries.
“Fourteen, but ve have ten more.” Von Strucker was not a man who wasted time. “Once ve have reset the Tesseract, I believe ve can stimulate Her to produce the right quality and quantity of energy that ve require.”
“How are your transducers standing up to the sheer volume of energy?”
“Ve have had to replace zem several times, but I have been assured zat is normal. Ve aren’t seeking to convert zee energy to a condensed form but consolidate it specifically to open a doorway between time and space. Zee technology is good enough, but it is zee Tesseract who is being difficult,” Von Strucker said with a wave of a hand. The man’s scarred face turned slightly as if to make certain that he hadn’t moved.
The Secretary was leaning hands on the monitoring console and leaning towards the observation window. “The last time the Tesseract was used in this rigorous way was in the nineteen-forties. No doubt there are a few kinks from sitting at the bottom of the ocean.”
“She haz been in storage for many years,” Von Strucker replied coldly. “Vhatever fussiness She haz developed vill be worked out. Already ve are close.”
“You’re certain?” There was something in the Secretary’s tone that just hedged on disapproved disbelief.
Von Strucker leveled the Secretary with a cold glare. “Zis machinery requires careful calibration, but I don’t believe you understand zee miracle ve are striving for. You are a politician, albeit a very good one, even if you were a spy before zen.”
The Secretary finally pushed off of the metal console and folded aging hands behind the man’s back. He didn’t dare move a muscle or otherwise draw attention to himself. “Then calibrate it and prove to us that the past is the place where we must correct ourselves. If you cannot, I suggest you move aside from other projects.”
“Zis vill vork,” the Baron said with a cutting tone.
“Then perhaps you haven’t provided the Tesseract what She needs to open the way. Make Joshua Hodge walk,” the Secretary said. That wasn’t a suggestion either.
“You don’t get to order me on my own project, Alexander Pierce, least of all vith a peasant child.” Von Strucker looked on the verge of hitting the Secretary who simply watched the Baron with a pleasant controlled air. “I determine vho valks and vhen.” The Baron’s eyes suddenly locked on him. “Or perhaps I shall send your only provided candidate? You can vatch him evaporate before your eyes. Vy you chose such an unremarkable dirty-blooded child is beyond me. I had such hopes you’d put forvard a vorthy candidate.”
The Secretary also turned eyes on him, clearly unmoved by the idea of the kind of death that awaited him. “Agent Rumlow would make the walk.”
Von Strucker sneered. The expression twisted up the ropy scar on the Baron’s cheek. “You sound confident.”
“I sent the best man for the job,” the Secretary said simply as if that were all the fact required to win this argument. Then, as if changing tracks to keep the peace, the Secretary went back to leaning on the console and looking out as the team went about their checks. “I always wanted a son, you know.”
The Baron’s anger was drawn back in like water being absorbed from the sand in a desert. “Two daughters, is it?”
“Oh yes, beautiful girls both of them. I couldn’t be prouder,” the Secretary said. He caught a prideful hint of a smile when the strawberry blond looked over at the Baron. “It’s just not the same though, is it?”
“No,” Von Strucker agreed softly. “It’s not. A man can be proud of his daughter, but it is not in the same vay zat a man can be proud of his son.”
“How is your son doing?” Was that a hint of jealousy he picked up from the Secretary?
“Werner is finding his vay. He does vell in his endeavors and grows fit and strong, a child I vill one day be proud of I’m sure.” The Baron’s gaze was fixed on the room beyond. “He was not candidate material because of his age, but he vill succeed in time vhen given the opportunity.”
The Secretary nodded, but there was something in the older man’s face that seemed to hint at an age old internal argument. He dared to shift slightly to ease his position, but neither of the heads of HYDRA bothered to even acknowledge him. Instead, the Secretary seemed to be lost in thoughts and the Baron was watching Pierce with a keen interest.
“I’d like to see the process, Wolfgang.”
The scarred Baron considered for a time and then nodded stiffly. “I vill organize somezing. It vill not take long. You may vait here.” With that, Von Strucker walked out of the observation room and shut the door, clearly refusing him the opportunity to make the walk.
Rumlow wasn’t certain if he was relieved or frustrated. Instead, he stepped away from the wall to take spot that the Baron had recently vacated, looking out as technicians nodding to orders and began to set up the Tesseract for activation. It took only a few minutes for the rest of the technical team to walk into the room and move to the consoles to begin testing and calibrating. He was probably the only candidate that was going to see this before ever making the walk himself.
He was prepared to watch this in silence, the file of photos long forgotten in his room. He instead folded his hands behind his back and watched the proceedings. Technicians called numbers to one another, the Tesseract hummed even at this distance, and the team settled in for something that had by now become routine for them.
“You were adopted, were you not?” He had not entirely expected the Secretary to ask after personal details of his life.
“Yes sir,” he replied, trying to keep the coldness from his voice. This was not a subject that he discussed with anyone.
“Your biological mother was a nurse,” the Secretary said. He said nothing in reply; he couldn’t say he remembered her well. “She passed when you were young?”
Brock gritted his teeth and forced his face to relax. “I was four, sir.”
“And your father?”
Now this was definitely not a subject that he wanted to discuss, especially with a head of HYDRA and certainly no matter how much he respected the Secretary. “He died when I was nine.” Old enough to remember what being beaten with a metal coat hanger that had been heated cherry red on an oven element was like anyway.
“I knew your mother. She was a kind woman, but I was under the impression that working with half men took their toll on her.” He shifted uncomfortably, more because of the admittance that the Secretary knew his mother than because of the subject of her work. He didn’t know a lot about it, and he had been angry enough in her passing to never look into it.
Still, curiosity picked at him. “You knew her well?”
“As well as any soldier might,” the Secretary said. He gaped openly. “She was kind enough to change my bandages gently.”
His mind played over the what battles were being fought in and around the time when he was born, since his mother had stopped nursing after he had come along. That much he knew because it had been reminded to him almost constantly by his father. The one bad decision that led to the road of depression, drinking and finally the end of it all. His father really liked that story; it came often with closed fists.
“You served in ‘Nam,” he ventured.
“Yes, though I don’t acknowledge it often.” The Secretary turned to look at him, now ignoring the movement of technicians and the occasional spark of the Tesseract. “You look a lot like your mother, but your manner is more your father.”
It was only because he had seen the comment coming that he mastered his reaction before it happened. His shoulders still tensed, and he gave the Secretary an openly cold stare. “I’m nothing like my old man.”
The Secretary smiled pleasantly at him, as if waiting for another snarling outburst from him. It seemed to amuse the man that he bristled at this probing, and he suspected it was some kind of test. He was no doubt failing it completely. “You’re more like him than you realize.”
“You knew my old man too?”
“I am your old man,” the Secretary said. Just like that. Just throwing out there.
For a moment, Brock didn’t process the statement and then his expression hardened as he closed off. He knew better than to rise to the bait, and the insanity of the claim chaffed him as little else could. His hatred for his father was nothing to tease or joke to him about, and not even the Secretary was allowed that inroad. He was stronger than the miserable situation of his upbringing, and he was not about to be mocked for it either.
The Secretary was clearly measuring his reaction. Beyond Pierce, Joshua Hodge was being brought in dressed similarly as he was. The guy was clearly getting final instructions from Von Strucker personally.
“You’re full of shit,” he said with a curl of his lip. “Go fuck yourself, sir.”
“I got you on your mother in 1970, spring of that year actually. Our tryst lasted two weeks before I was shipped home,” the Secretary said with the air and tone of a man speaking on the weather. The air of a man who had no care for how close to snapping he was. “She returned State-side three months later, and she informed me at the time.”
His molars were grinding together as he waited for the punchline to this joke, though he had not known the Secretary to make jokes outside of rumour. Apparently there was a time and a place at fundraisers and cocktail parties for the kind of high class social tittering. He had never been there, and he certainly wasn’t interested in finding out about it now.
“Sir…” he said firmly as if a word from him was going to stop this potential for violence.
The Secretary looked over at him and smiled. “You can keep your mouth shut right now,” the strawberry blond said, tone hinting that the potential for violence was very much two-ways here. “You’ll regret not hearing this, I assure you.”
Brock made every effort to crush Pierce’s skull in with his non-existent mind powers. The best he managed was a disgruntled heated stare.
“I was engaged at the time, and she returned to the man who you currently consider your sire,” the Secretary said. “It was an arrangement that worked out until you were born. What a colicy, fussy baby you were, and you can count yourself lucky you weren’t throttled in your crib by month two. By six months, your mother had become depressed and subservient. I kept an eye on them.”
There was a pause in the insane story as Joshua was checked over and clothing, items and story were tested. Even with the door closed, he could hear the sound of technicians calling to each other various test phases. Joshua was trembling slightly.
“You grew in a poisonous environment, and it would either break you or make you into the material that the world needed. A single dose of thirty sleeping pills and a bottle of vodka, and there you were alone with that abusive angry drunk. Still, I left you. It was only when you got old enough to become of interest to him that I arranged his demise,” the Secretary said but was watching the candidate.
Brock had the blazing urge to stab the knife hidden against his calf into the Secretary’s neck. He might not stop at one stab either, and then his clothing would be ruined. He would definitely be willing to take the dressing down that he would get for ruining his uniform.
“You were adopted by close associates of mine, and you were allowed to run wild and develop the skills I deemed necessary.” The Secretary suddenly turned to him. He was a single moment away from imbedding his fist into Pierce’s face. “It’s in the blood, Brock.”
“Shut up,” he finally snapped. He took the backhand with barely a turn of his head. “Don’t you…”
The Secretary moved quickly for a man in the fourth decade who looked slightly soft of body, and his rage flared when his throat was seized, but there was a bare blade pressed into his inner thigh with startling intent. “You are my blood, and because of that, I’m ensuring the success of this mission. Did you never wonder why you were my apparent favourite for this?”
He admitted that he hadn’t thought of it much. He had assumed that it was virtue of his skills, his ruthlessness and his ability to survive better than most. He hadn’t considered that he was just another cog in the machine to be put into play when Pierce needed him most. If he allowed his brain to unjam, he might even recognize the arrogance and perhaps the beauty of the entire plan. Instead, he was just plain furious beyond coherent words.
“Listen to me, the success of this mission depends on not just what a man can do but what he’s willing to do,” the Secretary whispered, holding him roughly and with fingers tightening on his throat. “The Tesseract is an energy source, Rumlow. It needs to know only where and when to open the door. My father served in the 101st Airborne division. Where do you think Hodge’s grandfather served?”
Suddenly it all made too much screaming sense, helped by his rage suppressing other thoughts. His eyes flicked from Pierce’s intent face as the pieces fell into the appropriate place and then his gaze turned to where the Tesseract was being primed and readied begin. He couldn’t help his gaze returning to the Secretary’s, and there was something so familiar about the set of the man’s mouth that had him tearing himself away from the Secretary and coughing.
“I’m your pawn,” he snarled.
“You’re my assurance of a future,” the Secretary corrected. “You are the most ruthless man that I’ve ever seen. There is nothing that you cannot do.”
Rumlow shoved passed the Secretary towards the door as the priming phase ended for the test. He was not letting some low-life like Hodge take his place now that he thought he knew the secret. “Stand and watch,” he snarled.
“Brock.” Something in the Secretary’s voice caused his head to whip around. “Just remember that the key has and always will be Rogers.” He lifted his hand and caught the bag the Secretary threw at him, feeling the heavy weight of coins and the rustle of bills. “It’s in the blood, Brock.”
He lingered in the doorway even as he heard the countdown. “How will you know if I succeed?”
“I won’t exist,” Pierce said simply. “None of this will, but you, Brock, will exist.”
“And so your bloodline continues,” he said softly. “Did you love her?”
“Not particularly,” the Secretary admitted. “But I was ever fond of you. The son I always wanted thriving in the worst conditions outside of war and famine and disaster.”
That was actually more than he had had growing up. It didn’t make this situation something that he could process right now, but he still felt cold fury at Pierce. “I hope you suffer before this ends.”
The Secretary inclined a head towards him in acknowledgement and smiled. He turned away and shoved open the door to the observation room.
“Oh and Brock, one last thing…”
“What?”
“I expect grandchildren,” the Secretary said, eyes glittering maliciously.
Rumlow let out a cry of fury and slammed the door, startling a few technicians from their stations but also drawing Joshua’s attention from staring at the strange metal arbour that was humming loudly. He stormed down, ignoring the hands that tried to grab him away from making for the candidate, shaking them off even as a hand snapped a metal wrench from a work bench as he went.
He made it Joshua as the Tesseract started to fill the arbour with blue crackling energy, and there was a yell from Von Strucker to remove him. He glanced down and noted for the first time that where they stood was not in fact a rubber mat but a smear of old black ash. He looked up at Joshua who appeared to have realized for the first time the same thing.
“We’re going to die, Rumlow,” Hodge said, trembling and pupils dilating with fright.
“You, yes, me… no, I’m going to the past like it was planned,” he snarled and suddenly wrenched Joshua from the designated spot towards the arbour.
“STOP HIM,” Von Strucker yelled over the cacophony of noise being put out by the transducers trying to contain and consolidate the energy put out by the Tesseract. “Shut zis down!”
“The energy is surging!”
“It’s too much, too fast, sir! It will be too dangerous to shut it off abruptly. There is no where for the energy to dissipate!”
Brock hauled Joshua around the crackling arbour, the metal wrench still in his hand and the other man suddenly tried to pull away from him in fear. He bashed Hodge in the head with the wrench and dragged the stunned man over to the Tesseract which was putting out enough light, heat and energy to be painful.
He twisted around so that Hodge’s back was to the apparatus holding the Tesseract and stared at the other man’s eyes which were focusing and starting to bulge with fear again. He brought the wrench down on Joshua’s head once, twice, three times and then a fourth just for good measure, but it wasn’t necessary by then. Only the sting of fingernails clawing at his cheek drew momentary notice, but he didn’t care, too angry to want to do anything more than succeed.
The other man’s skull dented and split, but more important for his purpose, the blood spattered back against the Tesseract, which sizzled and began to hum even louder. The smell of burning flesh began to fill the room rapidly as he just shoved Joshua’s body into the beam of energy that Tesseract emitted towards the metal arbour. The corpse burst into ash in a single moment, but the energy from the Tesseract spiked, becoming wider and changing colour to a darker blue.
“It’s a surge!”
“It’s too much, too soon!”
“SHUT IT DOWN!”
Abandoning the bloody wrench, he walked around to the other side of the device again, pausing long enough to grab the pack that Joshua had left on the floor when he had begun to drag the other man away from their starting point. He slung it over his shoulder and ignored the yells of the technicians trying to figure out how to stabilize the energy which crackled and then solidified into a concave disc protruding from the arbour. It pulsed and then seemed to stabilize.
At first, he saw nothing but blotches of light and what looked like some kind of weird wisps. It took him a moment to realize it was the stars and cosmos. He reached up and ran a hand through his hair, realizing absently that the dress coordinator would berate him for messing up her careful styling.
“Get away from zere, you worthless peasant!”
“It’s going to blow!”
“The transducers are coming apart! We can’t control the energy.”
“You can’t cut the power from a source that misbehaves, sir!”
The image swam in front of him, taking up all of his attention. It materialized to some kind of street, but it was grainy like the old films. People were walking down the streets in the image, but they moved either too slow or too fast to be normal. He swallowed anything that might be considered fear down and glanced away from the image.
Alexander Pierce stood on the top level, hands resting on the railing watching him intently. He stared at the aged man and suddenly flung up his middle finger at the man who claimed to be his father. Fury filled him when the Secretary simply smiled and gave him a mocking bow in return, and it was enough of a slight to drive him forward the two steps between himself and the concave disk.
The moment that his hand reached out and slammed into it, his world dissolved into flashes of lights and the drag in all directions that threatened to pull him apart one cell at a time. It was his fury over the story that Pierce had told him that held him together, a sort of righteous anger of a child long denied the pat on the head for a job well done. At that moment, it was all that he needed, all that filled his mind as his world turned confusing and painful around him.
It seemed to go on and on forever, a cold and a complete lack of air where only his anger warmed him and kept him from panicking. Lights blurred around him, whispering and pulling at him, trying to find a way to his mind, which was blank with anything but fury at this point. He didn’t know up from down or one side to the other, but he knew that something horrible was happening to his body. It was being picked apart one cell at a time, plucked one at a time away from him until he wasn’t certain there was anything left of him but his indignant anger…
...and then he was slammed back together in a single savage teeth-jarring moment.
Rumlow’s hand caught on the cold solidness of a wall. He drew a breath he didn’t realize that he needed until that moment and almost collapsed to the pavement. His head swam with nothing and everything at the same time, and his first contribution to his new situation was to lean over and vomit everything that he could into the shadow of an alleyway.
He heaved between gasping breaths for air, his shoulders trembling and his knees threatening to give way under him. He stayed just like that for a very long time, finally bracing his shoulder against the wall to relieve his arm from the work of having to hold up his body. A cold suffused him as he stood there staring at the grisly scene of his last meal, half-digested and looking about as appetizing now as it had the first time he had consumed it.
Slowly, he managed to push himself off of corner of the building and drink in some of his surroundings, which at first seemed confusing and off-putting. It was just like the pictures he had studied but in full colour: the buildings, the vehicles, the streets themselves. It was all as it was supposed to be, and yet the reality of it shook him as his eyes drank in the sheer magnitude of differences that black and white photos failed to convey.
He stumbled away from the wall to a trash can and dug in until he found an old paper. Even that felt different under his hands, but he forced himself to focus his shaking hands so that he could look for a date.
May 26, 1943
Brock released the paper back into the trash bin and leaned over it to vomit again, though it was mostly shaking heaving. He spat several times just to give his shattered thoughts time to collect themselves, even as he found his gaze staring at the paper front which declared the Stark Expo commencing in just over two weeks time.
He inhaled passed the acidic burn in his nostrils and was forced to spit again as mucous and other unmentioned aspects of his previous meal filled his mouth. He didn’t dare wipe his mouth on the back of his sleeve, just as he didn’t dare lift a hand to his slightly mused but still greased hair.
Instead, he convinced himself to stand up. He was wasting valuable time and worse, he considered himself vulnerable out in the open.
Rumlow shifted his vintage pack on his shoulder and glanced around. He knew the itinerary by heart now, and he forced his legs into motion away from the scene of his arrival, ignoring the burnt marks etched into the pavement. There was no going back. The present as he had known it no longer existed.
His first objective was finding Edward Calstorm. His second was Heinz Kruger. His third step was finding Steven G. Rogers.
*****
Brock was just adding a small lump of sugar to his coffee when Fred Clemson entered the small cozy room with him, dashing in a grey suit and red tie. It had taken him almost the full two weeks to maneuver himself to getting in contact with the man, one of the few known American spies that history had recorded. The man was also a very important aspect of HYDRA, and that made the man very important to him.
He shook hands with Fred, though he felt the man’s gaze flick down to his clothes. He was clearly not what the assassin was expecting. “Mister Pierce, what can I do for you?”
He resumed his seat with his coffee and saucer, noting that the china was the kind that old grandmother’s collected and told stories about. He stirred his coffee and watched Clemson smiling like this was a planned meeting and not something he had forced the entire way.
“You’re with the State Department?”
“I believe you know that already,” Fred said with a very good American accent. “You were the one to contact me saying you had information relating to national security.”
“There’s a spy in the United States, passing information to the Germans,” he said softly, watching for reaction. There was none. “This spy is going to assassinate someone on June 22 of 1943.”
Clemson just continued to smile, but the edges had brittled. “That’s a considerable accusation. I’ll need the name and proof of your allegations and pass it to properly authority.”
He set his cup and saucer on his knee and nodded his head, turning to rifle in his bag for said proof, which was really nothing in particular. He could feel the assassin’s interest intent on him, no doubt trying to discern what his play was. “Do I get rewarded for this?”
“If the information is viable, you will be rewarded yes.”
“I only want one thing,” he said as he pulled out a packet of folded paper and set it on his other knee. He faced Fred and smiled. “I want to be a candidate on Project Rebirth.”
There was a momentary flicker of surprise that passed through the other man’s face, eyes darting to the packet of paper. “I’m sorry but....”
“Let’s drop the pleasantries,” he said simply, though his smile was as dashing as ever. He had his pistol out at the same time as Clemson, but he managed to raise his to head level while Fred’s gun would at most hit him in the hip or low abdomen. “You’re Heinz Kruger, one of the Skull’s special agents and by next week, you’re going to be given the green light to assassinate Doctor Abraham Erskine after proof of his serum is witnessed.”
Kruger stared balefully at him, sizing him up. Clearly the assassin had been given that green-light, but the Heinz was waiting for the perfect opportunity to get the most out of the situation. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I know my facts well enough,” he replied with a cocksure smirk. “You get me in on Project Rebirth as a candidate, and I won’t stand in your way.”
“Are you an agent of the great cause?”
“No, not officially, but I will be soon enough once I have a face-to-face meeting with the Skull,” Brock said. That meeting was a long time off though, but he had to set himself up well before then.
“Who are you really, Mister Pierce?” Heinz was clearly looking for a name to look into.
“My name is Brock Rumlow. I was born in 1971, and I’m here to make certain that you HYDRA chumps don’t fuck up a second time,” he said simply, his smile so dashing he knew that even the Secretary would be proud..
Heinz looked at him as if he had taken partial leave of his senses. They weren’t lowering their guns from each other either, but he could tell that Kruger was debating if it was worth eliminating him. “You speak of nothing but warm air.”
He leaned back in his chair, his gun still poised to blow the other assassin’s head off and ruin some really nice chairs. “I happen to admire the Skull’s work with the Tesseract,” he said with a simple shrug.
Consternation flooded Kruger’s expression before it was shuffled off, but Heinz lowered the gun again. He was leveled a new measured look as the assassin decided what play to make with him, and it was only when the other man steepled fingers that he lowered his own gun and returned to his coffee. He continued to regard Kruger in the same manner as he was watched, but he was confident that the other HYDRA agent would see things his way.
It was clear that Heinz came to a decision when the man took up a cup a coffee and drank down half of it with a single quaff. “At the Stark Expo in New York City, you will enlist for the military there. Doctor Jaramin owes me a favour, and I will see you get your place.”
Brock inclined his head slightly. “Good because the candidate that I’m replacing is already dead.”
Kruger paused, but then a slow smile lit the man’s mouth and face but didn’t reach Heinz’s eyes. Those eyes only held a respectful cruelty. “You are a very strange man, Mister Pierce, but I respect your kind of strange. If you are half as ruthless as you seem, you will go far.”
“I guarantee I’m more ruthless than you think,” he replied with a smirk.
They finished their coffee in silence, eyeing another as two stray hungry dogs watch the last scrap of food set right between them. He made no move to take things to a level that he might later regret as he had to let Kruger try and fail to acquire the serum. Some things in history were best staying the same, and as Pierce reminded him more than once, Rogers was the key to everything here.
He set his cup and saucer aside on the small table beside him and picked lightly at the doily there. It was strange how wealth in this day and age came from the strangest things. He still rose when Kruger did, expecting a handshake to seal their deal.
Instead, he raised an eyebrow when Heinz thrust both arms high in the air and growled, “hail HYDRA” like it was a matter of utmost pride. He had to respect a guy would risk discovery facing a fellow agent, even if he had never admitted to it personally, just hinted with technicalities.
“Uh… no,” he replied, holding up a hand. “We kind of gave that nonsense salute up in the sixties. We’re now the steely handshake and ear whispering kind of group.”
Heinz gave him a flat, disapproving stare. “I see.”
“I don’t think you do, given you didn’t have to watch HYDRA implode with bad decisions, bad leadership, and arrogance. We’re a little more of a secretive lot now, but we are no less loyal to the cause. Hence why I’m here having coffee with you,” Rumlow said with an undertone of steel in his voice.
He grabbed his pack, slipped the paper packet into it and slung the bag over his shoulder. He checked the security of his pistol next, the first thing that he had actually bought in this time, and so far, he had only had to discharge it once. It was a good thing too as bullets were really hard to find right now, but he didn’t mind being conservative. He was as good with a knife or fist as he was with a gun if called to do so. He preferred to save his need for violence when it would serve him best, not before, and he’d have his fill of blood soon enough.
He headed for the door, only to be stopped by Heinz’s question. “If you know the outcome of the war as you claim, do I see the end of it?”
Rumlow smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if helpless. “I can’t tell you, champ. I wouldn’t want to alter things more than I already have. Hail HYDRA,” he said with a wink. “Oh, and don’t write my name down or send information about me to other agents. Where I’m going… the blanket of anonymity is where I will thrive.” He inclined his head, tipped his hat, and strode out.
As long as Kruger died for the cause, that was all that mattered to him. Rogers would become famous based on that venture, and it would allow Erskine’s pet project to slowly gain the use and confidence of that new body and be of the most use to the Red Skull. He could deliver Steve Rogers on a golden platter and see that the future of true freedom was ushered in. Nothing else mattered to him.
Now he could enlist, be assigned where he wanted to be, and, if possible, meet Steve Rogers all the same night. It was an opportunity he wouldn’t waste.
*****
He was shivering despite the fact that he couldn’t feel anything related to temperature in his dreams. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest and his small arms curled around them, examining the large scabs on his knees that were healing but cracked from bending his legs. He didn’t remember falling, but he was certain it had happened. Maybe that was why he knew he was shivering too.
He absently picked at the edge of one of the thick mats of scabbing with a dirty fingernail, ignoring the fly that buzzed around his head. His sensitive ears picked up the sound of stomping in the house, the heavy gait of an individual looking for trouble. He was hidden under the wooden porch, a small space only he could fit.
He winced when the edge of the scab rose, frowning as blood beaded out from the now exposed aspect of his healing injury. He poked at it with a finger, smearing the ruby liquid across his skin in his bored avoidance state.
He was still shivering. He still dreaming too.
Suddenly, beyond his wayward imagination, a pooling droplet of blood from his knee popped up and hung in the air. He stared at it, blinking disbelieving eyes as the small bead tumbled and shivered in the air right in front of his face, dancing like a very strange red bubble.
Brock reached out and poked it with a finger, and it popped. Unexpectedly, it spattered over his hand and even reached his face. There had been in no way that amount of blood hanging in the air, but it coated him, and to his horrified amazement, it plucked at him. Noise filled his head like a soft tittering woman and then the skin of his fingers began to dissolve, flicking off like bubbles too. He blinked when he realized the same was happening to his face.
He inhaled sharply, on the edge of a wailing noise that caught in his throat as his hand began to disappear into blinks of blue light. He looked up at the porch wood above him, seeing the old webs of spiders and dead ants up there.
He was coming apart bit-by-bit, one cell at a time. His nose was gone! His skin was following even though none of the bubble of blood had marked it. He shifted, frightened and unable to breathe properly.
He did what any other three-year-old would do. “Mummy,” he squealed loudly, flapping his hands in the air.
“...was that him…?”
“...n-no, Brock is over at the neighbour’s yard…”
“Mummy,” he squealed again, high pitched with fright. Why was he falling apart?
“That was that little brat! Get him in here! He’s got a mess to clean up!”
“...he’s just a boy…” There was a sudden grunt of pain from the house, a female moan that ended with a soft sob. Another blow followed…
Brock jerked awake, struggling in the tangled sheets around his legs and then freezing when he breathed hard through his nose. His back was flat on the floor, his skin clammy with a sheen of sweat from his nightmare, and he blinked his eyes rapidly in the darkness of the lodging that he had rented for the night.
Suddenly, he was grasping at his own hands, counting his digits and searching for signs of damage to his skin and bones. There was nothing. His skin was whole. Upon inspection, his nose was exactly where it should have been and he could breathe just fine. He was shivering until he had tightened his muscles to force the primal action to stop, and then he sat up slowly to untangle himself from the blanket and sheets twisted around his legs.
He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand once free and sighed heavily. He absently passed his fingers through his hair next, dispelling the last effects of the dream from his mind. It had been a long time.
He pushed himself up from the floor and padded to the small bathroom, taking a piss to give himself something to do. He turned his head as a phantom of the soft tittering noise caressed his ears, but he was alone in the dark.
No, he was completely alone in this time. He had only just come to realize that, and only his drive to succeed and plans he had already set in motion kept him from focusing on just how alone he was. No one to advise him. No one to chide his mistakes. No one to take the fall for him. He was the only agent of HYDRA who knew what would come to pass with his failure.
Suddenly, he was leaning forward and emptying his stomach into the toilet, his fingers gripping the side of the porcelain bowl. He spat several times and shook his head. This was going to be a very long week indeed.
“...for HYDRA…” he whispered in the dark.
*****