｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆
CHAPTER SEVEN— WINTER WONDERLAND

          Meeting Sam Wilson was an interesting event, to say the least. Lizzie calling him 'birdman' was hilarious to Hope, especially with his facial expression as she did. He tried to explain that he was called the Falcon, but Lizzie just stared at him blankly before calling him 'birdman' again.

The mission now was to go after Agent Jasper Sitwell, a secret HYDRA agent that posed as SHIELD. Sam and Lizzie(who actually got along well, considering how they originally met) lured him in while the three wanted SHIELD agents dragged him all the way up to the roof of a really tall building.

"Tell me about Zola's algorithm," Steve said as he, Natasha, and Hope started walking towards him. Sitwell immediately started to back away. "Never heard of it" The man denied smugly, not realizing how this was going to end up.

"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?" Steve questioned. "I was throwing up, I get seasick" Sitwell backed up too far, almost falling off of the edge of the building. He almost stumbled off but was grabbed by Steve who held him up by the shirt. The man panicked but then automatically looked smug once again.

"Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because it's really not your style, Rogers" Steve didn't express any other emotions on his face.

"You're right, it's not" He backed up for a moment, making Sitwell think he was in the clear. "It's theirs" Sitwell only got to look at the two female agents for a split second before they both pushed him off of the building. Sitwell's screams of terror were pretty loud.

"Oh, wait. What about that girl from accounting, Lau-Laura? Lis—" Steve cut her off. "Lillian. Lip piercing, right?" Steve recalled. "Yeah, she's cute" Hope rose an eyebrow at the Black Widow whose side mission seemed to be setting up Captain America.

"Yeah, I'm not ready for that" Hope had to jump in, knowing Lillian quite well(at least in the professional sense). "She's also aromantic" Hope corrected before Sitwell was flown up and dropped on the floor of the roof by Sam Wilson in his Falcon Jet pack, accompanied with wings too.

Lizzie showed up through the door that led to the stairwell, panting after running up all those stairs. "You need to give me a warning next time" Lizzie huffed before moving to Hope's side. The group surrounded Sitwell, he was blocked in on all sides.

"Zola's algorithm is a program...for choosing Insight's targets!" He burst out loud, easily cracked. Hope knew HYDRA had to have done some sort of training in case of situations like this, Sitwell was just easy to crack...or the fear from being dropped off of a building was a bit more damaging then she knew.

"What targets?" Steve questioned the agent, clearly not liking him. "You, a TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, Hope Mikaelson, the Saltzman twins, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future" Hope and Lizzie both stiffened at the mentions of their full names. Lizzie grabbed on to Hope's hand in fear, accidentally siphoning some magic at first.

"HYDRA's well award of the supernatural" Sitwell added when he saw the look on the girls' faces, smugly thinking he had the upper hand. But he wasn't spelled with anything to block magic and the two girls were clearly pissed off.

"The Future? How could it know?" Sitwell laughed weirdly. "How could it not? The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it" Sitwell rolled his eyes when he noticed that the others weren't understanding him. "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future" He elaborated.

"And what then?" The realization hit Sitwell in what he had just given up to the enemy. "Oh, my God. Pierce is gonna kill me" Hope and Lizzie, both beyond irritated with man, gave each other a knowing glance before Lizzie siphoned a bit more magic before the two started to chant in unison.

"Phasmatos Morsinus Pyrox Allum" Sitwell screamed out in pain at the pain infliction spell the two girls cast on him. They stopped after less than a minute knowing it could possibly kill him since he was a weak human.

"What then, Sitwell?" Hope inquired, half ready to mumbled another spell. The man scrambled backward in fear but answered. "Then the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time".

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

They were all sitting in a minivan that barely had enough room for all of them. Steve and Sam were in the front seat with Sam driving, Sitwell and Natasha in the middle, and Hope and Lizzie were in the back. It was extremely tense due to Sitwell's appearance.

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks" Sitwell kept panicking for his own personal safety, annoying everyone in the car. "So why don't you try sticking a cork in it," Sam said, glancing at him through the mirror for a moment before shifting his focus back on the road.

"I will spell your mouth closed if you don't" Lizzie threatened grumbly, practically pouting back there. Hope sent her a sympathetic smile which made the siphon witch sigh.

"Insight's launching in sixteen hours, we're cutting it a little bit close here" Natasha brought up, glancing at Steve and then Hope. "I know. We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the Helicarriers directly" Hope could admit that it was a good idea, she and Lizzie could make themselves invisible while they did it too.

"What?! Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea—" They were all caught off guard when the glass window on the side of the car where Sitwell was sitting on shatters as a metal arm roughly grabs Sitwell and yanks him out of the car before throwing him into oncoming traffic. Sitwell is immediately hit by a semi-truck, killing him instantly.

"Are you kidding me?" Hope exclaimed as the metal-armed man crawled on top of the roof of the car. Hope didn't even think before using her magic to pull back the brake handle, something she unknowingly did as a baby before Lizzie muttered, "Projectium deflecto" To protect everyone from the glass shards from the windows.

Hitting the brakes made the assassin go flying forward, only for him to stop himself by using his metal hand to grab onto the concrete of the road, stopping him due to the friction.

Natasha moved up front quickly, urging the two girls to sit in the middle. She took her gun out and was about to shoot the assassin when the minivan was hit from behind by a Jeep who kept driving them forward and towards the assassin. They were most likely also apart of HYDRA.

The unnamed assassin wearing a mask that covered up to his mid-forehead did some sort of twist-jump and got himself on top of the car again. Glass from the windows was shattering, nobody knew what to do.

Sam hit the gas to speed off and hopefully lose the car and assassin until he broke through the windshield and literally tore out the steering wheel.

"Shit!" Sam swore. Hope held out her hand for Lizzie to siphon, she knew the blonde still had magic in her but she wanted Lizzie to have more just in case. Siphoning normally hurt other witches but Hope's practically unlimited amount of magic stopped it from hurting as well as her quick healing ability.

The Winter Soldier jumped on top of the Jeep behind them that, once again, crashed into the back of the minivan. It seemed like there was no way out of this besides getting out of the minivan as it started to swerve due to the lack of a steering wheel(thanks HYDRA).

"Hold on to each other" Hope shouted at the three up front who grabbed on to each other. "Motus" Two of the car doors flew off, giving them a way out. Everyone was unbuckled by now. She muttered another spell, one that safely ejected them out of the car, tumbling around a bit though.

They all looked at each other, too in shock to say anything. Steve checked over each of them quickly to make sure nobody was hurt. Hope and Steve were next to each other, Natasha not too far off while Lizzie went over and had quickly healed Sam who had been injured a bit before they had escaped the car.

They all were standing now, noticing the jeep that held more HYDRA agents and a few cars that also had agents in them stopped, the Winter Soldier among them. Steve had a tight grip on his shield with one hand and a softer and more protective grip on Hope's shoulder.

One of the HYDRA goons handed the assassin what looked like a rocket launcher. Lizzie went to step up to help Hope but stopped herself, knowing that Hope didn't need her help with this and started to count how many agents there were and how she could take them out.

Hope had started to chant a spell as the assassin hit the trigger, pointing the bomb coming out of the rocket launcher at her and Steve. Steve, knowing that there was a chance that Hope wouldn't finish her spell in time, pushed her out of the way and held his shield in front of him protectively. Steve went flying as the bomb hit his shield, off of the road that was on a highway bridge and down to the ground streets. Hope could hear cars crashing and people screaming down below with her enhanced hearing.

The rest of the agents took this opportunity to start shooting at the rest of them. The four took cover behind some abandoned cars as well as the flipped over minivan. They were split up at that point, Lizzie and Sam were together due to being new at this along with Lizzie also knowing she couldn't reveal too much of herself so she wouldn't have to come out as enhanced like Hope pretended to be. Natasha was on her own just like Hope was, the Mikaelson tribrid was grateful that Natasha still stuck close to the other two in case she was needed.

As they kept on shooting, Natasha and Hope made eye contact and non-verbally created a plan. They didn't want any civilians or the newbies in the crossfire, the best thing would be to direct the attention to them specifically. Nothing says directing attention to yourself like creating a chase.

"Glad you gave me your blood in a vile" Natasha muttered, pulling out the vile that was tucked under her shirt on a necklace chain. Natasha, the only person who would willingly become a vampire if necessary, held her breath before quickly drinking the blood so she couldn't taste it. Hope and Natasha glanced at each other, nodding before going off with their plan.

"Sispann la agresé" Hope hissed, making one of the HYDRA cars showing up to the scene completely flip over and destroy itself, not hurting any civilians who had seen the confrontation and left as soon as they could.

Natasha used this as the cue to start running, Hope catching up to her only because of her super-speed. The HYDRA agents started targeting their shots at the two females, stupidly so considering that Hope repeated the protection spell from earlier that made the bullets disappear before it even hits them.

They both easily leaped to the other side of the road where traffic was flowing despite everything that was happening. The assassin used his rocket launcher and directed it at the girls before firing.

"Adiuuatur" And just like that, the flaming ball that was flying at them and the civilians trying to quickly escape their deaths in their cars was gone. The spell was a fire extinguishing spell. She could see the frustration on the HYDRA goons' faces from miles away.

She smirked and flipped them off before jumping off of the bridge in synch with Natasha. The Black Widow used her grappling hook to safely get to the road below them while Hope's agility from her werewolf side and untriggered vampire side made it a lot easier to land and not break or fracture anything compared to the normal human.

Neither had noticed that the Winter Soldier had shot his rocket launcher again, barely missing the next flaming ball that was directed at them.

"I'm gonna tear their throats out" Hope hissed before running alongside Nat, both girls more so annoyed than anything.

"He's watching us" Natasha whispered after seeing the Winter Soldier's shadow. She then swiftly turned around and started to shoot, the bullet cracked the eye-goggle from the mask he was wearing. He disappeared for a moment, Natasha swiftly grabbed Hope's arm and directed their way to go take cover by the abandoned vehicles.

She can't make her and Nat invisible, he seems to have enhanced senses and can hear their footsteps. So they just had to get creative. Hope took out the gun she kept on her(mostly due to Tony and Natasha's insistence that she kept a weapon on her in case of an emergency) and decided to play by the human rules, see if that catches anyone off guard.

As soon as the assassin came back with his gun and no mask, both former SHIELD agents started shooting back at him before running off.

Hope didn't hear the Winter Soldier tell the agents, "они мои. найти его" and even if she did, she wouldn't fully understand because Natasha had only taught her a few distinct words in Russian, mostly words that specifically threatened murder. She would have no idea that he said, "They're mine. Find him" before he jumped off of the bridge and landed on his two feet as Hope had, some agents also did use grappling hooks to go and take down Captain America.

Hope also had no idea that Lizzie and Sam were kicking ass on top of the bridge, Lizzie not even having to use that much magic after being trained by her father, a former vampire hunter, who trained Josie and Hope too.

Natasha has a great idea to take her phone(how she still had it, Hope had no idea. That woman had to already be supernatural) and pull out a recording of her voice she had prepared for something like this, which confused Hope even more and placed it behind a car to confuse the assassin when she recalled Hope mentioning a while back that he had enhanced hearing.

Natasha had used her 'I'm the boss, you're barely an adult' authority and made Hope run to get Steve as she attacked the Winter Soldier, claiming that they'd be the only ones to match the assassin and would be able to take him down if they were together.

If it wasn't for the vampire healing blood in Nat's system, Hope wouldn't have. But she did, she ran and tried to find Steve in a mix of both civilians running for their lives and HYDRA agents that were being taken down by her and Sam(who was shooting from the top of the bridge).

"Hope!" The auburn-haired girl sighed in relief when Steve had spotted her. They weren't too far away from each other. Hope went running over until she saw a HYDRA agent trying to sneak up on Steve.

Already pissed off, Hope muttered under her breath, "Me ne de qual suurentaa!" which snapped the neck of the HYDRA agent. While she hated killing people unless it was needed, the Mikaelson came out of her as she used the spell that she had been taught by her aunt Freya's specific spell that could only be performed by extremely powerful witches.

Hope's spell earned a look from Steve who spun around for a moment to see what Hope had done. "I was annoyed, now come on. Nat's fighting Robocop right now" Steve didn't understand the reference, making a mental note to put it on his list, but ran with her as she made her way to where Natasha last seen.

Hope couldn't stop herself from freezing at the sight she saw. Natasha was hiding behind a car, pressing on her shoulder that had just been shot while the Winter Soldier was about to shoot again. Natasha had to have the bullet out before it could be healed with Hope's blood.

Hope went to check up on Natasha first as Steve started to fight the assassin with his shield. "Fuck, Nat" Hope sword when she saw the wound and how Natasha was holding back tears that Hope knew would never actually fall. "The bullet needs to come out, it's stuck in your shoulder still" Hope cringed.

"Go help Steve, I'm fine" Natasha gave her a stern look when she saw the tribrid about to argue with her. "Steve's getting his ass kicked, go save your damsel in distress, Dove" She handed the Black Window her gun before running into the fight.

Natasha had been half-right, Steve was mostly defending himself at this point because his shield was out of grasp. "Knight in shining armor is here" She stated sarcastically before jumping into the fight, taking Steve's spot and fighting with the Winter Soldier. She knew he had been a bit taken back by her arrival but hadn't physically shown it.

The two instantly got into hand-to-hand combat, while doing so Hope kept the information in the back of her mind that this man wasn't human at all. His aura, at closer inspection, looked more like Steve's with a mix of something dark that she couldn't identify, something that seemed less human.

Hope let her eyes glow gold, only enough for the assassin to see but he was not phased. It was only a few moments later that Steve joined again, probably after checking up on Natasha too.

The three fought, the assassin was surprisingly able to fight back against the two. Hope was a bit bored and impatient, wanting to get this over with instead of repeating the same moves over and over. She could tell that Steve was getting a bit tired after whatever he dealt with after they split up initially so she took charge.

Hope got close enough and grasped his metal arm tightly, letting her claws extract from her nails to really get a good grip on him. Her other hand grasped at his chin before she flipped the man with all her strength, making him fly back a bit and his mask coming off like how Hope planned. She wanted to know who the fuck killed Fury, she could find out if she had a face she could search for.

The man was barely phased by it, getting up and into a standing position. When he turned back around to face them, a look of horror clouded over Steve's face. The man lightly grabbed onto her arm making Hope freak out a bit.

On closer inspection of the assassin known as the Winter Soldier, Hope realized exactly what he was freaking out about. She had accompanied Steve to his exhibit at the Smithsonian a handful of times, she recognized the face of the man who Steve had told stories about, one of the most important people in his past life who he lost before he flew that plane into the ocean.

His best friend, a Sargent, the only one from the Howling Commandos who had given up his life while serving, or so the entire world thought.

"Bucky?" Confusion glazed over the formerly expressionless blue eyes that he tried to shake off.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" The man went to shoot the two with his gun but was stopped when he was knocked down by Sam Wilson in his Falcon armor with Lizzie hanging onto one of his arms, looking annoyed. When Lizzie landed she pulled out a gun from her side that she most likely had stolen from one of the many agents.

There was another moment of confusion, even a hint of fear, that was physically noticeable as it washed over the soldier again. He tried to push it back and follow orders. He went to go shoot again, only for Natasha to make it just in time with an explosive launcher that she focused on the soldier and distracted everyone who hid from the flames.

Smoke engulfed the area as the group huddled closer together. "Sirens, I hear sirens" Hope commented right before they were in range for everyone else to hear. Steve looked incredibly destroyed and was still frozen as he didn't stop looking at the spot in front of him where Bucky had once stood, the group looked at the Man Out of Time with sympathy. The only reason he was able to come back to reality was when he felt Hope hold and squeeze his hand in a comforting manner, something subtle but well enough to get him out of his own head.

They were all surrounded moments later by SHIELD agents, the ones that were really HYDRA which included Brock Rumlow who Hope had previously trusted. They were all cuffed, Hope in special ones that stopped her from using magic. She could get out of them with her werewolf strength but that would risk the others being shot at alongside her, she couldn't afford it so she cooperated as peacefully as she could.

Hope didn't know what to think or believe anymore, not after everything.