Takes Place in Winter Soldier

Ash's POV

It was the middle of the night and I was sitting at my desk carving another wooden statue of a cat, wearing a t-shirt, dark blue jeans, red sneakers, and a dark blue flannel sweater tied around my waist when I asked,

"JARVIS?"

"Yes Ms. Ash?"

"Can you turn on the tv and put on the news please?"

"I would not recommend that at this moment."

"Why not?"

"I'm afraid it would upset you."

"JARVIS, I can handle whatever nonsense the news has to offer." I assured him as I put the finished statue down and started cleaning up the wood shavings from the desk top.

"Very well..." The tv turned on and instantly the line of text on the red Breaking News bar caught my attention, "Captain America; Public Enemy Number One."

"What?!" I bolted up from my seat and turned the volume up, listening as the news described how Steve Rogers was involved in the death of Nick Fury, fled from S.H.I.E.L.D., and has not been heard from since.

"This can't be..." I put a hand to my mouth in disbelief when a beeping alert broke my attention away from the screen.

"There is someone who wishes to see you in the labs." JARVIS informed me and I asked,

"Who?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. authorities." I left my room walking rapidly and was met with four armored soldiers with a man leading them in the lab area.

"What's going on?" I demanded to know and the lead man asked,

"Are you Ash?"

"Yes, and, with all due respect, you didn't answer my question." I did my best to maintain a composed appearance but my hands started to heat up anyway.

"My name is Brent Hallaway and we believe you are in danger. I've been sent by Alexander Pierce, the Secretary of the World Security Council, to bring you to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in Washington D.C. immediately."

"I'm not sure about this..." I told him warily, slowly backing away from them.

"Please, we don't want to have to bring you to him by force, but we have been authorized to do so if you don't come quietly."

"True words of an authoritarian..." I quietly pulled the phone that Tony gave me before he left in case I needed to contact him or the others out of my back pocket and was about to hit the extra panic button he had installed on it, when I felt it being taken out of my grasp forcefully before my arms were grabbed and held behind my back.

"We didn't want to have to do it this way, but the hard way it is." Hallaway gave a signal to the man holding me and I was forcefully moved along until I shouted,

"JARVIS, activate Protocol 3 7 9!"

"Protocol 3 7 9 activated." All the tower lights went out and my natural night vision activated, surprising the men long enough for me to wrench my arms out of their grip and fire several blasts of flames to keep them away.

"Protocol Override Accepted." JARVIS's systems were hacked to where the light came back on and I no longer had the element of surprise in the dark.

"Oh boy..." I looked at the men as they pulled their weapons out and red lasers were aimed right at my core.

"Now how 'bout you come quietly and not give us any trouble this time, hmm?" Hallaway asked with a condescending tone of voice.

"No!" I fired a blast up at the wall to ceiling window, breaking it and giving me an opening to escape by flying out into the open outside.

"Take her down!" I heard Hallaway shout from the building and, before I knew what was happening, a small streak of silver zipped past me in the air and exploded in a cloud of green fumes.

"Agh!" I had no time to attempt to hold my breath before my vision started to go hazy and I crashed back down to the ground before blacking out completely.

3rd Person POV

2 Hours Later

Hallaway and his extraction team had successfully handcuffed Ash with special ionized radiation cuffs that would fully dampen her powers as well as her radiation signature before they arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters by helicopter. They were disembarking and didn't notice that she was waking up, but keeping her eyes closed to fake being unconscious as she had been taught by Nat in case of a kidnapping.

"The package has been retrieved and we're bringing it in now." Hallaway reported into his commlink as they walked toward the building when Ash flipped the man holding her over her head and used the chain between her cuffs to twist a weapon out of another soldier's hands before stealing a grenade off someone's belt and pulling the pin with her teeth before tossing it to the ground.

"Grenade!" The blast went off, causing everyone to duck down to avoid the blast, giving Ash another opening to run off through the streets of the city.

"Grr..." Hallaway got up and frustratingly pulled the comm out before reporting, "Package is on the move. Permission to pursue?"

"Leave it. The serum will stay in her system for the next 24 hours, she's helpless, we'll catch her soon enough." Pierce's voice came through and Hallaway grudgingly complied with the order.

Meanwhile, Ash had run as far away as she could and made it to the waterfront of Washington Monument before she finally slowed down to catch her breath.

"Need... to... get these off..." Ash tried to heat up her hands to melt through the metal, but she realized that the glowing cuffs were emitting ionizing radiation and, as an extra safeguard, the toxin she had inhaled earlier was severely weakening her.

Frustrated, Ash decided to sit against a tree, surprised at her exhaustion, to figure out what she was going to do since she ran away from obviously corrupt authoritarian figures for S.H.I.E.L.D., so either they had gone rogue or S.H.I.E.L.D. itself was compromised as she deduced in her mind before dozing off.

Little did she know, someone was running her way, but it wasn't a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, it was a man who was out for his early morning jog, not really enjoying the fact he wasn't hearing "On your left" every few minutes due to everything that was going on. 

"Huh?" He stopped jogging when he saw bright red hair peeking out from behind some bushes and, after he got closer, he saw that it was a kid sleeping against a tree; a kid wearing glowing handcuffs, and was covered in smoke and rubble and countless dried up scratches, but he recognized her as the Ion Phoenix from the Battle of New York.

"Hey, kid?" He gently shook her and she immediately bolted up and held up her cuffed hands in a defensive position.

"Get away from me!"

"Woah hey hold on!" The man held up his hands non-threateningly as Ash questioned,

"Are you S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"What? No." He kneeled down to make eye contact before introducing himself, "My name's Sam, Sam Wilson. I'm a friend of Steve."

"Steve Rogers?" Ash asked, still mistrustful of this "Sam Wilson."

"Yeah yeah, Captain America." He smiled a little, proud of that little fact when they both heard a helicopter overhead heading their way.

"Come on, it's not safe out here." He helped her off the ground, albeit with her still slightly glaring in suspicion at him, and they both made their way over to his house just as the sun was rising.

As soon as they made it to Sam's house, he closed and locked the door behind them and went to find something to pick the lock on the cuffs.

Ash was wandering around Sam's house, trying to determine if she could trust this man when she saw a photo of him standing side by side in front of an official-looking building with another man and they were both wearing uniforms, but were smiling.

"That's me and Riley." She turned around to see Sam standing next to her with a Philip's head screwdriver in his hand, "He was apart of my team until he was killed during a mission."

"He was a friend?" Ash asked as they both made their way to the kitchen table where she rested her cuffed hands on the surface and Sam tried to jam the screwdriver into the keyhole.

"My wingman." He answered, but Ash looked at him in confusion so he added, "A fellow pilot." and she nodded in understanding as he continued to jiggle the screwdriver in the hole.

"What were you doing out there?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers came to the Tower and abducted me after I refused to come willingly."

"Heh abduct..." He laughed a bit to himself before seeing Ash's dead serious face and coughed before asking, "Something didn't seem right?"

"Yes. The gas they used to incapacitate me is still affecting me, I can barely make my hands warm, let alone light any flames." Ash looked down to her cuffed hands right before the arms sprung open, freeing her hands.

"Haha!" Sam raised his arms in triumph as Ash rubbed the red marks on her wrists before he asked, "Would you believe me if I said that was my first time picking a lock?"

"Yes." Ash answered simply.

"Ok..." Sam spoke a bit disappointed before shaking it off and pointing down the hall and saying, "Bathroom's on the left if you want to go clean up and wrap those up."

"Thank you." Ash went to said room and took a washcloth to wash her face clean of the smoke that had left streaks across her face. She fingered some of the small scratches that she accidentally opened up while cleaning her face, thinking about how she had not hesitated to use that grenade, endangering herself and others just to give herself an opening to escape, it scared her to think about how much she had changed since New York, some for the better, some she had yet to decide.

Out of nowhere, she felt a dizzy spell hit her full force to where she leaned forward and had to clutch the edge of the sink with both hands to keep from falling down. Breathing deeply, she straightened back up and wiped the sweat drops from her forehead before shaking her head clear of the dizziness.

She had grabbed gauze off the rack and was wrapping both her wrists when she heard knocking on the front door and she stiffened a bit at the sound.

"Hey kid! We got company." She heard Sam call out a minute later and she slowly came out of the bathroom only to be met with a poorly disguised Steve and Natasha in the dining room, looking like they had just survived an explosion from the smoke and rubble on their ripped clothes.

"Steve! Nat!" Ash ran up to the two of them and grabbed them both in a hug.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Nat kneeled down to Ash's height, taking in the scratches on her face and gauze around her wrists.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. happened." Sam answered for her and they both turned their attention back to Ash who nodded with a grim expression on her face as confirmation.

A short while later, Nat and Steve had gone to clean themselves up while Ash helped Sam with making breakfast and they all ate before discussing their next plan of action.

"So, the question is, who at S.H.I.E.L.D. could launch a domestic missile strike?" Nat questioned out loud.

"Pierce." Steve answered.

"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world." 

"But he's not working alone. Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star." 

"So was Jasper Sitwell." 

"So, the real question is, how do the two most wanted people in Washington kidnap a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer in broad daylight?"

"The answer is, you don't." Sam came into the room and dropped a brown folder on the table.

"What's this?" Steve took the file and opened it to read it.

"Call it a resume."

"Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you? You didn't say he was a Pararescue." Nat questioned and Sam answered with a nod.

"Is this Riley?" Steve asked.

"Yeah..."

"I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use? A stealth chute?" Nat remembered.

"No. These." Sam held up the folder and it had EXO-7 FALCON on the front in bold black letters.

"I thought you said you were a pilot."

"I never said pilot." Sam smirked a bit.

"I can't ask you to do this, Sam. You got out for a good reason."

"Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to get back in."

"Where can we get our hands on one of these things?"

"The last one is at Fort Meade. Behind three guarded gates and a 12-inch steel wall."

"Shouldn't be a problem." Steve dropped the file back on the table and they all prepared to leave before Ash spoke up from where she was standing in the kitchen,

"I can't help with this mission..."

"What?"

"Why not?" Nat asked, concerned.

"Whatever they used on me, it's weakening me far more than just usage of my powers. I'm surprised I'm still standing right now." She answered with a weak voice.

"It's alright, you need to lay low anyway, I'm willing to bet they have search parties out there lookin' for you." Steve assured her.

"She can stay here. Nobody ever comes around here, it'll be safe for her to hide." Sam offered just before Ash leaned forward a bit, clutching her stomach and moaning in pain.

"Hey hey..." Nat came over and led her to the couch in the living room, "It's OK, just rest for now, we'll be back soon..." Nat laid Ash back on the couch as she was screwing her eyes shut in pain.

"Whatever they used on her, it should pass, but she's not gonna be in a good position to fight." Sam explained.

"You know what this is?" Nat questioned after draping a blanket over Ash.

"I think I have a pretty good idea from what she told me; Serum DH75Z, an experimental sedative created by S.H.I.E.L.D. to severely weaken the victim's ability to move, it was never released because it's supposed to be pretty deadly for a human due to a defect in the chemical composition, but since she's not human..."

"She'll be OK?" Steve finished.

"Hopefully."

"We gotta move, the longer we stay in one place, the easier they could catch up." Steve brought their attention back to the issue at hand, mainly directed to Nat as she was brushing stray strands of hair away from Ash's face as she was slowly falling unconscious.

"We'll be back OK..." Nat whispered to Ash and she feverishly nodded before fully closing her eyes.

"Let's go." Nat stated determinedly before walking out the door with Steve and Sam following behind her.

Long Time Skip

A couple hours later, some large tremors woke Ash up from where she was still laying on the couch. Groggily opening her eyes, she saw that everyone was still gone and she was alone. After getting up she still felt sick to her stomach, but was at least able to move around a little better without feeling stinging pain in her muscles.

"Once again, not being human pays off..." Ash commented to herself as she got up to find something to do. Her eyes fell to the remote that lay on the living room table and the tv in front of her.

Should I even...? She thought to herself in hesitation before resolving to pick up the remote and turning on the tv. Once again, she was met with a Breaking New report of three Helicarriers being launched from the river near S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and reports of Captain America.

"Oh no..." Ash turned off the tv and had an inner debate on whether she should stay put where she would be safe, or risk it and go to help Steve, Sam, and Nat. Ash held up her hand and tried to summon some flames, only succeeding in making her hand glow in heat a little bit.

"Good enough." She told herself before tightening the laces on her sneakers and the flannel around her waist and leaving through the back patio door, running toward the fight.

Short Running Time Skip

After about ten minutes of running, and occasional short flying leaps, later, Ash made it to the forest lining the river near HQ and was panting while watching as the Helicarriers started shooting at each other. Squinting up at one of the Helicarriers, Ash thought she saw a blur of blue and red fighting someone with silver where their arm should have been.

"How do I get up there?" Ash questioned to herself before she felt someone tackle her from the side and pinned her to the wet ground. When she got her bearings back together, she saw that she was looking up into familiar red and orange eyes with wild and unruly matching hair wearing a black uniform.

...

...

"Xavion...?" She recognized the boy in front of her but he didn't seem to as he prepared to blast her, making her bring her legs up to kick him off from under. When he got up, she saw that his eyes were burning like molten lava and was twitching spastically and was growling like a wild animal.

"Xay! It's me, Lumna!" Ash tried to plead with him, but her gaze caught sight of a metallic collar that was around his neck with the red Hydra symbol on it and noted some high pitched noises coming from it.

"Some kind of mental frequency tech." Ash analyzed its design in her mind just before Xavion charged at her again, this time, she ducked down and flipped upright as Xavion landed on her and was tossed to the ground.

"I need to get that collar off..." Ash clenched her fists as the boy got up and glared at her with a crazed look in his eyes.

"I'm sorry about this Xay!" Ash ran forward and was about to leap onto his shoulders to perform the move Nat showed her to do to literally bring an enemy to the ground, but Xavion shot a blast of fire at her before she could prepare to execute the move. She was knocked to the side and lay there for a few seconds before she noticed that Xavion was stalking toward her with a blazing fist ready to fire.

"It's me Xay... Please... Don't..." She pleaded once more to convince her friend to not do what he was about to do, but this time it seemed to work as his fist shuddered in midair, as though he was fighting with himself. Abruptly, a high-pitched piercing screech sounded from his collar and he clenched his head in pain before taking to the sky, flying off to who knows where.

Sighing in relief that she didn't have to fight her friend anymore, but still discouraged that he was under the influence of Hydra, Ash was prepared to leave the area when she heard sloshing water noises coming from the river a few feet away. Slipping on the muddy edge, Ash navigated her way towards the sounds and from a few feet away, she could see the man with the metal arm, dragging something behind him in the river, or rather someone, Steve. Once she got close enough, she saw that she recognized the man, from the stories Steve told her, who was dragging an injury-ridden Steve, his old childhood friend, Bucky Barnes.

Bucky saw her coming and shot her a warning glare that told her not to follow him before he dropped Steve on the ground out of the river and left, leaving Ash to run over to Steve and check on him with what medical knowledge she had to make sure he was still alive.

Another Time Skip

Later, after Steve had been taken to the hospital, Nat came to take Ash to the aircraft hangar to send her back to the Tower when she stopped her and pulled her aside.

"Hey kid... one of Hydra's agents..."

"Was Xavion..." Ash finished her sentence seeing as how hesitant she was to finish it herself.

"Yeah? How'd you?"

"He and I fought for a little bit before I found Steve by the river... he... wasn't himself... Hydra's controlling him..."

"We'll find a way to free him, I promise..." Nat pulled her into a much-needed hug, before facing her to say,

"We don't tell Bruce about this OK?"

"Why not?"

"The world already has a situation of questioning its security and about wanting to arrest you, me, and the others, we shouldn't add to the list of things to stress him out with."

"Ok." Ash gave Nat one last hug before she was called to board the airplane bound for New York.

Reflecting on her entire day, Ash soon fell asleep, still thinking about how much hope she felt when she saw her old friend for the first time, along with doubt replacing it when she saw that he was under HYDRA's control, before a sudden thought hit her,

There must be others...

3725 Words

AN- Sorry it's been a while, a month to be exact, since I've updated either of my Marvel OC Insert stories, but I'm still working on Vol. 2 and Age of Ultron chapters and haven't been able to lately because of homework and lack of access to the laptop.

I have one more filler chapter for this story that I hope to post later this week and I will try my absolute hardest to get the first chapters of the next movies finished before next week.

Also, I've been doing some more work on my OC File book and will be posting the first chapters of the OC Short Stories and Mini Moments book soon.

I hope you all are doing well during this time and I'm always available to talk, especially to fellow Class of 2020 Seniors since we're all in the same boat of uncertainty right now...

See y'all in the next chapter!