( captain america: the winter soldier )

★

"THIS IS... MY God, this is Michel Reuge's vault!"

Chloe's eyes snapped open. Sitting up, she held her head in her hands. She swore she fell asleep in the car with Natasha and Steve. Shaking her head slightly, Chloe's brown eyes scanned the room, finding Evie and Jacob Frye in the middle of... a vault?

Jacob gasped. "Michel Reuge's Vault? It can't be."

"You have no idea who that is, do you?"

"Not the foggiest."

Chloe groaned again and dragged herself to her feet. Shaking her head slightly again, she walked over to the twins to see what they were digging through.

"He was an Assassin." Evie explained. "Father had one of his books. Legend says he found some fabulous treasure near Bath that drove him mad. He locked it away beneath London in a vault that could only be opened by special musical boxes."

"'Special musical boxes'? Now who's mad?"

She allowed her head to turn away and face the rest of the vault. The Assassin looked at the vault before resting her back on the main funnel in the middle of the room, closing her eyes.

"Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?"

Chloe snapped open her eyes again, meeting the bright lights of the real world. She sat up straighter in the backseat of the car and looked out the window to see trees, trees, and more trees. Rolling her neck, she stretched as much as she could in the back of a small vehicle.

"Nazi Germany." Steve answered. "And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash."

Chloe caught Natasha send him a look before slowly doing so, smirking slightly before gazing out the window, letting her thoughts drift.

"Alright," Natasha spoke, cutting the silence. "I have a question for you, of which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know-"

"-What?" Steve asked, irritated.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?"

Chloe hid her laugh with a cough, exchanging a quick smile with tho older woman.

"That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that." Natasha defended.

"Well, it find of sounds like that's what you're saying."

"No, I didn't- I just wondered how much practice you had."

"I don't need practice-"

"-Everybody needs practice-"

"-It was not my first kiss since 1945." Steve said, ending their bickering session.

Meanwhile, Chloe was in the back trying very hard not to burst out laughing. To her, it sounded like the kind of arguments she and Alex would have sometimes and she would be in the predicament of onlookers. 

Suddenly missing her cousin, she pulled out her phone to check her messages, seeing only one has popped up from the man himself.

Thanks for saving the flash drive.

No problem. Have you gotten the security footage?

Nope and nope. Completely forgot to do the second one. Rebecca and the team are still trying to de-code the drive. Will keep you posted.

Okay, don't forget this time.

Funny. Go bother someone else.

Smirking, she tuned back into the conversation before her.

"Nobody special, though?" Natasha asked once again, sending a smirk to Rogers.

Steve scoffed. "Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."

"Well, it's alright, just make something up." Natasha reasoned.

"What, like you?" Steve questioned, slight teasing in his voice.

Chloe tuned out of the conversation, her own thoughts filling her mind. What would her life be like if she had a significant other? Would they be from the Brotherhood or just a normal civilian? Truth be told, she never had time to think about it. Chloe was always training and out on missions, her thoughts always occupied. 

"What about you, Frye?" Natasha asked, drawing the teenager's attention. "Have anyone special out there?"

Chloe thought for a moment, leaning her head on the cool window. "Never had the time to."

"Really? Why?" Steve asked, slight concern etching itself onto his voice. He just couldn't really believe this seventeen-year-old, this kid, never truly had her own childhood.

"That's just how it is."

★

Chloe climbed out of the truck, setting her eyes on the compound in front of her. Slipping on her hood, she walked out in front of the two adults.

"This is it," Steve stated, glancing at the teenager.

"The file came from these coordinates," Natasha informed the group, looking at the fence in front of her.

"So did I."

Chloe, dismissing the conversation, analyzed the lock on the gate. Raising her left arm, she flicked her wrist, the hidden blade slipping out into view. She raised the blade the lock, effectively picking it. The young Frye kicked open the gate and stepped back, motioning the way. "Lead the way, Cap."

By the time the three had made it to the main camp, dusk had settled upon the whole camp. Leaving the two adults behind, Chloe decided to run around the camp and explore. She reached a high point, scanned the area, and used her vision to examine through the walls, feeling a little disappointed when coming up with nothing.

However, the familiar tick of suspicion made the young woman narrow her eyes on the building in front of her.

Seeing a pile of leaves, Chloe leaped off the edge and landed in the pile below. She stood up and ran to the two adults who were staring at a building.

"What is it?" Natasha asked, noticing Steve's staring and Chloe's urgency. Following Steve, Chloe made a note to keep her vision at the ready at all times. 

"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards from the barracks. This building is in the wrong place." Steve said, slamming his shield against the lock on the building's doors.

Chloe nodded, giving shady glances to her surroundings. Entering the bunker with her companions, the girl took a look around at what she could assume would be an old SHIELD base. Natasha walked over to a wall and flicked on a light switch, revealing the logo emblazoned at the end of the room.

"This is SHIELD," Nat stated, walking through the aisle with Steve and Chloe in tow.

"Maybe where it started." Steve guessed.

The trio reached the end of the room.  Walking through a door, Chloe's eyes caught on four photos, Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, Colonel Chester Phillips, and...

Chloe couldn't help but let her body go stiff as she singled out the picture and approached it with a sense of oddity. Lydia Frye's picture hung before her, the woman exhibiting a sense of power and strength, even from a picture. Eyes glued to the frame, Chloe couldn't seem to shake the feeling that the woman was judging her with her steel eyes.

People talked of how she worked with Winston Churchill and others in the midst of both World Wars. People talked how she rescued innocents from lines of fire, how she regained radio activity, how she shot down enemy planes and blimps. 

Chloe was proud to have another strong female ancestor, even though sometimes she just felt like it was another pair of boots to fill.

As the young Assassin glanced behind her, she saw the two Avengers walk on to investigate the rest of the building. She was about to join them until she felt a buzz from her pocket. Drawing out her phone, she saw the contact of her cousin jumping on the screen.

Locking eyes with Natasha, she gestured to her phone in hopes of sending a small question. When she got a nod in return, the Frye exited the building and accepted the call request.

"Hello?"

"Chloe!" Alex greeted. "How's life?"

She furrowed her eyebrows and she started climbing a barrack in the hopes of getting a better signal. Miraculously, her phone stayed between her ear and shoulder. "Alex, right now may not really be the best time to call-"

"-Chloe Frye don't you dare hang up your phone. I have information on Fury's quote-unquote death."

Chloe reached the top of the tower by the time Alex finished his sentence. She re-positioned her phone to her ear and spoke again. "Well? Was it the Winter Soldier?"

"Yeah, that Natasha lady was right. The dude had a sweet metal arm and everything, have you seen it?"

Chloe laughed, interrupting his nerd fest. "I'm kind of busy at the moment, so no. Anything else you wanna share other than your man crush of the Winter Soldier?"

"It's not a man crush, it's a simple appreciation of his metal prosthetic."

"Uh huh."

"Don't mock me―" Chloe heard a beeping sound over the phone. "―shit."

"Alex?" Chloe said, slight concern seeping into her voice. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, but get this. I ran a file search over everyone in Shield, don't ask, Bishop was a little suspicious, and the results came back. Apparently, a couple of SHIELD agents have a history with a certain enemy of theirs. Care to take a guess?"

The Assassin's expression dropped. "HYDRA."

"Bingo. Turns out their organization isn't very shield-y after all and- double shit."

"What is it this time?" Chloe asked, making her way down the tower. She would never admit it, but the teen was getting a little concerned for the two people inside.

"Chloe, this is serious! You got a short-range ballistic heading your way, thirty seconds tops-"

Her phone cut off suddenly, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Panicking slightly, the girl used her second eyesight to find safety and located a sewage under the ground. She ran to the entrance and carefully opened it, seeing and smelling the sewage below. Hopping down the ladder, the girl heard a sound tearing through the air above and closed the entrance quickly.

Gripping onto the ladder tightly, the Assassin could only hope the two Avengers inside made it out safely.

★

wassup children.

this is entirely late bUT HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm sorry for the late delays, but you know how school is and its soul-sucking ways.

BUT- hopefully I will be able to get a few more chapters done before May. My goal is to have this book done before March and possibly get the second one started around summer. 

Who knows, maybe I'll get to do the little in between book I've been wanting to do ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

edited: 2/24/18

that little book I mentioned? it was gonna be a short story of Chloe and Jacob meeting. but, i have no creativity or will to do so. instead, the concept is just weaved into this plot, as you all know.

peace,

aidan.