⚠ ⚠ ⚠ THERE ARE THINGS IN THIS CHAPTER WHICH MIGHT BE DISTURBING OR TRIGGERING SUCH AS MURDER!! IF YOU PROCEED PLEASE DO SO WITH CAUTION!!⚠ ⚠ ⚠

A/N( I have changed the times of some things to make other things that will happen in the future available so instead of Tony Stark having been born on May 29, 1970, his birthdate has been changed to May 29, 1984. He is 3 when his parents die, not 17.)

"Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future."- Fulton Oursler

(10 weeks later)

I was kept in training. A month after I had started, they switched out the training dummies for real people. People who had gotten on their list, or people connected to those on that list. There was one target that I had, I can remember what I did.

⚠ ⚠ ⚠ A disturbing/triggering part is past this point!! If you wish to skip it, go on ahead to the END ⚠ that signals the end of it!!⚠ ⚠ ⚠

I was taken back to the training room. I had long since mastered the guns, and we were doing physical training now. How to kill a person with nothing but your hands.

Standing in the center of the room was a person with a bag over their head. I thought nothing of their small height, I had killed someone that small once before.

"PAB-24. Use your training. The back if you can." I nodded at the command and quickly went to the figure.

I swept low, kicking out their knees, causing them to scream as they fell forward. It was high pitched, this target was clearly young. Still, I continued. As they hit the floor I grabbed their leg and applied as much pressure as I could while lifting them and taking a hold of their shoulder. I lifted them up as high as I could.

And slammed their back down onto my leg. Their scream was loud and full of pain, as I could hear clearly what I had done. There was a loud snap directly after, I had broken their back. The body fell limp to the floor but the whimpers and sobs coming from them told me they were still alive. I crouched next to them and grabbed hold of their neck. Pulling them up, I wrapped my arms around it, and jerked harshly. The sobs cut of with a sickening kibosh*. And the bag fell off their head.(1930-40s slang: Kibosh= Squelch)

In the place that I had put the person, I saw a little girl, no older that 9. I had just killed a child. But those were my orders. Regret flashed across my face, before it was quickly replaced by nothing. Emotion is weakness. There is no room for weakness here. All weaknesses must be eliminated without exception. But... I had just murdered a little girl.

END ⚠

She wasn't the first kill I did and she definitely wasn't the last. She was the only child I had killed though. But she's the only one I really remember, even if it is through a thick fog. Is it a bad thing that her face is disappearing from my memory?

"PAB-24. Follow me." Stern-One ordered. I did so without hesitation. I was led to a room with a chair in the center, there was a headset attached to it.

"Sit." Stern-One gestured to the chair. My instincts told me not to sit in that chair. I did it anyway. I had done this three times before, and I always felt the need to stay out of the chair, it caused me a lot of pain. Pain is a part of life that can never be escaped, you must learn to tolerate it instead of attempting to hide from it, or it will be your downfall. At least, that's what Stern-One had told me. Four men came into the room and immediately started to hook me up to the chair, the head set lowering over my head.

My arms were restrained and a thing was put into my mouth to keep me from biting my tongue off due to the pain the chair causes. Then, without warning, the chair was turned on and my mind felt like it was being scrambled. And everything was slipping away.

I... I killed... Who was it? I... I am empty.

"She has done well. Put her on ice for now."

(41 years later)

I had been sent on lots of missions. The only real thing I could remember about them is that in almost all of them I had been sent to kill someone. There was another assassin with the group, The Winter Soldier. He mostly goes out on solo missions, leading me to go on mostly solo missions as well, though he has gone on more missions than I have. This one was one of those rare missions that we had together.

We were waiting for a flivver to pass by. It will contain something that we are to retrieve. No witnesses, all people present to this retrieval mission are to be killed without hesitation. The road we were on was silent. It was nearing 11 PM when a car finally made its way down to us.

I looked to Winter Soldier and he nodded. Our target. We could hear the car, but since it was silent out, more so than normal, it was actually far off. When I could hear that it was close, I made my way to the middle of the street. By the time the driver saw me, it was almost too late.

They swerved to the side to try to avoid hitting me, but the flivver went straight into a tree. I went over to the driver's side when I heard someone exit the fliv - No. Car. They were injured, I could see they were dragging themselves.

"Howard! Howard!" I heard a doll's voice yell from the passengers side.

⚠ ⚠ ⚠ There is death/murder past this point!! ⚠ ⚠ ⚠

I found a man, around 60 on the ground. I took out a gun from the holster on the small of my back, put it off safety and cocked it. BANG!! The man slumped over and was still, the sound echoing slightly in the air. I turned my head and found Winter Soldier with his own gun out, smoking slightly and aimed at where the man's head had been. I hadn't fired that shot.

"HOWARD!" The woman yelled in alarm, and fear.

Winter Soldier pointed at the trunk and I got the message clearly. 'You get the objective.' I nodded and went to the trunk while Winter Soldier went over to the passenger side door to get rid of the witness. I took the objective and looked to Winter Soldier as I heard a distinct snap. He came over and passed me. He raised his gun and fired at a camera on a pole nearby.

END ⚠

And we both got on our bikes and rode away to the pick up point, me with the objective, and Winter Soldier with the blood of one Howard and Maria Stark on his hands, both metal and flesh. I looked at my leather arm guards for only a second and it felt as though those red stars were laughing tauntingly at me. Red. A fitting color for a murderer.