december 1945

CENTURIES HAD PASSED. Hydra had evolved. Different than the religion-based organization it had once been, but still fighting for the same goals. Knowledge...among other things.

Over the years, one asset had stood out the most. One asset had lasted the changing times, obeying orders and laying waste to any and all people that posed threats to Hydra's existence. She walked in and out of burning buildings, little more than a sheen of sweat on her forehead. She was more dangerous than anyone had ever seen. More valuable than they'd ever imagined.

Asset 53 was the first one. Hydra's first success in the fight to create a weapon more powerful than anything the world had ever created before. There had been experiments before her, attempts before her to make a soldier like this. But they'd all failed. Before her, and now after her.

The asset was the only one that could be relied on to carry out a task so brutal that it could only be meant for the most inept psychopaths. She was not a psychopath, though. She was a machine, used for Hydra's benefit.

Along with the evolution of Hydra, its own Asset 53 had evolved, her personality developing with the new serums that had been perfected. In the beginning of it all, the only way to make a person immortal was the révoltant elixir of life that was stolen from Catherine de Medici's own bedchambers, the sorceress of the French throne. But that supply was limited. Inconsistent.

So Asset 53, numerical value placed in the number of attempts to make a weapon stronger than a ten-thousand-man army, was the first to succeed in their endeavors. Fifty-two subjects were tested with the elixir, but none of them survived. None of them could withstand the power of immortality. No one except for Number 53. She was the first.

The elixir had been used up on their first success, so it wasn't long before Hydra was out of options. Go underground and remain out of the public eye, building its army, or face the extinction of everything it had promised to stand for. Of course, they bided their time, waiting for a new way to recreate their most valuable asset, a girl who eventually turned into a woman with all the time spent out of cryo freeze.

Nothing had worked. For nearly four hundred years, there had been no breakthroughs after the elixir of life was used to the fullest. Though they searched, tearing apart the earth for something, anything to make another soldier as powerful as the one they'd stumbled upon, they came up short, every single time.

Until now. They'd waited for the perfect moment, infiltrating SHIELD for as long as they could, waiting for the day that they could steal what they needed. Finally, in the midst of a world war, they heard news of it. A serum that would solve all their problems. The same serum that turned a frighteningly thin man into the United States military's most useful weapon.

And now, the growing parasite underground had something to latch onto. They had a means of achieving their every goal. It was time for Hydra to rise.

—————

"Wrong. Say it again."

Asset 53 clenched her fists and stared at her instructor, a man who'd been the only other person to receive the gift of the elixir of life. Jacques Dubois had been there from the beginning, teaching her to fight, to manipulate, to be such an unsuspecting force of power that she'd never be caught. And now, centuries later, he was still teaching her to be an expert in language.

"Я никто," she stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables. I am no one.

Dubois grunted, far from satisfied with her attempt. "Sloppy. Your accent isn't..." he searched for the right word. "It's...incroyable."

"Je ne suis pas russe, bien sûr que c'est incroyable!" The asset hissed, her natural French words slipping from her mouth easily. I'm not Russian, of course it's unbelievable!

Unimpressed by her outburst, the instructor reached for a metal wand-like tool on the table beside him. Ignoring the asset's stiff posture as she realized what was coming next, he stalked up to her and pressed a button on the weapon, eliciting blue tendrils of electricity that licked the tip of it, inching towards her body.

Asset 53 was not afraid of anything, not when she was on a mission. But when she was in the hands of Hydra, she fought to obey every rule. There was no other way to survive otherwise.

The contraption crept closer to her, her instructor nearly snickering at the outright fear in her eyes as it came within breathing distance of her chest, hovering right over her heart. With a long jab to the skin there, he administered a shock to her chest that made her jaw drop open in a raging scream, filled with anguish and anger.

It had to have been almost a full minute before the wand was pulled away and the asset could gulp down buckets of oxygen, refusing to let tears fall from her eyes from the pain.

The pain was not what cause tears to rise to her eyes. No, the pain was a welcomed atrocity in the midst of everything else. The manipulation, the cruelties she witnessed every day, just for them to be wiped from her mind when she went into the ice again. What made her want to let those salty tears fall from her eyes was the low sense of betrayal that followed her whenever she was with this man, this Jacques Dubois.

He'd been there at the beginning. He was the only person she could actually remember. Everyone else was just a collective blurry face that had no meaning to her. And for him to do this to her, she felt like a promise had been broken.

Dubois interrupted her thoughts before they could become any more dangerous. "Your accent is what will keep you alive on a mission. You are of no use to us if you cannot adapt, 53. This is essential." He laid the shock-giving weapon back on the table beside him. "I can change my accent on the flip of a dime. It is what I need to do, given certain circumstances." He huffed out a breath and continued, "but my name doesn't change my heritage. As important as accents are, we must be cautious of the names we choose. We have to become someone else."

He inched toward the asset, cowering in her chair and brushing a thumb over the scarred skin on her chest where she'd been given shocks for the past...she couldn't remember how long. He put a hand over her shoulder, holding onto the back of the chair she was tied to, and looked intensely into her empty eyes. "So I use Smith."

"Smith." The name rolled off her tongue, unsure of itself. "Smith," she repeated.

Dubois nodded. "Correct. When the time comes, and you need infiltrate a country other than your own, you must learn how to best adapt to the circumstances—"

A sudden squealing noise outside their cement room sounded, growing louder as it got closer to the door. The asset's mind itched, trying to recall what that sound meant, but she was unsuccessful. Dubois, however, made a tutting sound with his tongue.

"Looks like we have another contender," he mused, a hint of a smirk on his dark, sharp features. Then he hummed as he listened, the squeak—of wheels echoing against the floor, she realized—alone in the corridor outside. "Usually they're screaming by now. I guess this one took to the sedation spectacularly."

He straightened up and opened his mouth to continue, but then the squeaks stopped and a resounding, booming knock on the door had the two of them jerking their heads toward the disturbance.

"Вы можете войти," he grunted. You may enter.

The heavy door swung open to reveal a rather small man, a permanent frown etched on his face. A pair of thin, rounded glasses slid down his nose on his balding head. A red bow tie was tied tightly around the neck of a sweat-stained, off-white button down shirt, the knees in his dress pants spotted with wet marks along the legs and ankles.

"Quickly, Dubois," he spoke in a hushed, hurried tone, "we don't have much time. His condition, it's...unstable. I need you to bring..." his eyes slid over to Asset 53, shuddering with the sight of her. "I need you to bring the asset, she will be his mentor."

Dubois made a noise of disbelief. "What makes you so sure this one will survive, Doctor? With all due respect," he sneered, no politeness in his tone whatsoever, "you've failed to recreate Hydra's most valuable weapon, a feat no one has been able to accomplish in the last four hundred years. What's different about this one?"

The doctor blinked, tapping his fingers nervously on his leg. "We have received certain components from SHIELD that will make the process more susceptible...to success." His voice shook as he spoke, eyes flitting back and forth between the instructor and his student. There was no question that he was feeling...under the weather in their presence.

Asset 53 smirked at the sight of his fear, at the scent of terror that rose from his every pore and entered her body. She used that fear as fuel. When she jerked in her seat, she had to hide a whiny, high-pitched roar of laughter at the doctor's reaction. He had to have jumped about a foot in the air.

Dubois sent an icy glare at his pupil and the asset watched his hand twitch in the direction of the electrified rod sitting beside him. Her amusement ebbed into silence, her mind clearing swiftly.

He turned to face the nameless doctor and a nearly animalistic growl slid from his mouth. "Very well," he drawled, "I am finished with the asset for today. Take her." He whirled to face the table of weapons and his shoulders hunched over, refusing to assist the doctor in getting the asset out of the room.

"Er," the doctor hesitated, "can we—can we get some help in here?" His words were meant for whoever was in the hallway, but they weren't loud enough to travel anywhere further than the space in front of his face.

The asset cocked an eyebrow and sneered, "I can walk by myself, thanks."

Dubois finally stepped forward to untie her, tearing the ropes away from her body a little harsher than usual. He didn't look at her as she followed the short doctor out of the interrogation room and into the corridor, where she saw a sight she'd never seen before.

On a wheeled bed—that was the squeaking noise—lay a man, donning a navy blue uniform. His hair was cropped short and his chest rose and fell shakily, his breathing labored. The most obvious thing about him, though, was the blood gushing from his left arm, pouring out of a wound where his forearm would meet his elbow. His entire lower arm was missing.

Something on his neck glinted in the dim light of the corridor, catching the asset's eyes. Leaning down to get a closer look, her eyes caught on a pair of metal tags. Their letters were punched in the alloy and the shadows of the cement corridor made it hard to read them, but she managed.

"Oh, he's a Sergeant," she cooed, a malicious grin coming to her lips. "Where'd we find him?"

Her question was ignored, as they all were. Even after all this time, she was not granted an answer to any of her questions.

Where are we?

Can I have another book or two?

Why are you killing him?

What's my real name?

Who am I?

The bed began moving down the hallway again, and the asset walked alongside it, peering down at the curious looking man. His eyes were closed, giving him the look of sleep on his face.

"I can't wait until you wake up, Sergeant," the asset hummed, clapping her hands together like a young child would. "We're going to be such good friends. I promise."

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okay just listen to this before i get into my usual bullshit:

i genuinely feel sick to my stomach when i think about writing this story because all i am associating with it right now is never getting enough time to write and never updating regularly. i want you to know that your kind comments literally give me motivation to write, and i have always loved this story, even if it stresses me out sometimes. there are only two more chapters left, and then an epilogue, so i'm really really hoping i don't drag this story out for another month or two, you guys don't deserve that. thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support, and i am super sorry for being such an unreliable asshat.

other than that, look look! did you catch the little details? jacques dubois talked about using the last name smith when he went out of the country, and we know a certain mr. smith, don't we? yep, same person! also, guess which brown-haired military brat is on the stretcher? yep again, buckaroo is the lucky winner!

i also hope you noticed that asset 53, while being the 53rd attempt, is the first one to actually succeed in becoming the first "winter soldier." then, isn't it super great that hydra literally had to wait four hundred fucking years until they could make bucky the winter soldier because they're so stupid on their own that shield has to solve all their problems?? hahaha hydra is stoopid

thanks for reading!! feedback is always appreciated!

published on: may 31, 2019