𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 || 𝘈 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘊𝘢𝘴𝘦

THE SOUND OF BEEPING HAD BEEN THE FIRST THING JAXON HEARD. A painful pounding of a headache clapped against his skull. His eyes fluttered open with a groan, sitting up in his bed. Anxiety rose in his stomach as a door opened, revealing a doctor and a nurse.

"Hello, Jaxon," the doctor greeted. "I'm guessing your rest was good?"

Throughout the room, which was part of the facility Jaxon trained in when he became a Quantum agent, was surrounded by medical equipment. An unusual feeling soared through his veins as he looked at the heartbeat monitor.

I don't know why they didn't just kill him. The female voice grew Jaxon's attention as he looked to the woman who wore a plastic smile on her face. "What'd you say?" He muttered, eyes squinting.

"I asked if your rest was..."

"No," he cut the doctor off. "I meant her. What did you say?"

The woman looked utterly confused, with a hint of fear in her eyes. She let out a nervous laugh, looking between the doctor and Jaxon, who continued to glare at her. What's with this guy?

Her mouth didn't move, yet he heard her? Jaxon's anxiety built as he went to point at her. But an orange essence emerged from the palm of his hand and shot out, attacking the woman. She let out a scream as her body went flying into a wall at an unspeakable force. A red splash of blood from the back of her head coated the metal walls. Her screams silenced in a split second, with Jaxon choking on a breath.

Jaxon nearly fell out of his bed as he scrambled out of it. The doctor sprinted out of the room within the moment of Jaxon's attack.

"What the fuck?" Jaxon muttered. "What the fuck? What the fuck?" Over and over, Jaxon repeated it while combing his hair. Exasperated breaths left him as he paced beside his bed. He bent down and groaned, bile bubbling at the bottom of his stomach.

"Get him prepped," Catherine's voice filled his head. "I want him out in the next hour."

His eyes turned towards the mirror that reflected his panicked and fearful gaze. Marching towards the mirror and slammed his fist's against it. "Catherine, what's happening?"

There came no response as he continued to yell for answers. Catherine just watched on the other side of the glass. "Prep subject 007," she said to Hurly. "Erase his memories of this."

Almost instantaneously, the door to the room swung open with multiple guards entering. Jaxon had heard her, and it was enough for him to fight back. He'd been able to fight them off until his exhaustion had slowly caught up to him. Not only from his powers but also his body is weak from his previous mission.

And the guards didn't waste a moment to pin him to the ground and grab an injector. "Stop!" Jaxon cried as he thrashed, hoping to break free. "Please, don't do this!"

The needle had pierced the side of his neck. Whatever fluids inside slowly numbed him as he continued to cry. "Stop, please," he sobbed. "Don't... Don't do..."

"Jaxon!"

Jaxon had sweat beading down the sides of his face when he shot up from his position. Eyes wide and feral. His hands gripped the edges of the back seat, burning the cushioning to the point where they were charred.

Natasha had seamlessly climbed into the back and cupped his cheeks. Leading to now with Jaxon's chest heaving choked breaths. Fear stiffened his body uncomfortably, like muscle tensing under the pins and needles of acupuncture.

He yelped when he felt Natasha's warm thumbs brush against his cheeks. Flinching under her homely touch as he looked at her and exhaled shortly. "I saw what they did...they..." His throat closed up as he clamped his eyes shut.

"You're okay," Natasha reassured. "We're almost at the location. Just breathe for me, all right?"

There's was no verbal response that Jaxon could give. Only lean into her touch as he calms his stuttering heart. Clinging onto Natasha for dear life as the rest of the ride was silent. An unusual and uncomfortable silence. None of the three knew how to wash it away, so they let it comfort them.

But soon enough, they arrived at the location. Besides the gate, a padlock secured the entrance to prevent outsiders from going in. As Steve got out, Natasha glanced back at Jaxon, finding him to still has his eyes shut. Natasha patted his leg after kissing him on the temple. "We have to go."

All that Jaxon could offer was a soft sigh and nod. As she stepped out of the vehicle, he grabbed his pistol from the bag at his feet and stepped out. He ran a hand down his tired features in an attempt to hide away the exhaustion and terror he felt.

"Is this it?" Jaxon asked. His eyes inspected the gate as he looked at the lock.

Natasha pocketed her phone. "The file came from these coordinates."

"So did I." The pair followed Steve's gaze to find a sign with large white lettering 'Camp Lehigh.'

There was a moment of silence before Jaxon twisted his hand. An orange tendril popped the lock open and ripped the chains a part. He pushed the gate open and marched forward with the pair close in tow.

The sun was rapidly falling with the stars and moon taking its place. And Jaxon found his gaze fixated on the constellations constantly. He chose them over the dilapidated buildings of a World War 2 training camp that surrounded him and the others. It felt odd for them to be walking through a place of history. Jaxon sure didn't like it, at least.

"So, do you got any family?" The question shook Jaxon from his stare from the sky to look at Steve.

The man shrugged. "Can't say," he said. "If I did, I would expect most of them to be gone because of half the things I've done."

"A girl I liked back in '43, I fell in love with a woman--Agent Carter," Steve said. "I don't think it's a coincidence you two share the last name. Maybe she can fill in some of the pieces of your past you can't figure out."

Jaxon doesn't know what to say with that information, honestly. He did believe that everyone in his family had probably died. If Ryan or Catherine were cleaning house, Jaxon would've thought his loved ones would be on that list. It had to be a grandmother or something like that, whoever this Agent Carter was. There was as well as Sharon Carter, Jaxon's sister.

"Was she around a lot during your tour?" Jaxon decided to ask.

Steve smiled slightly. "Yeah, she was," he said. "This is where I was trained. We went on a few missions together." Then he paused for a second, glancing at Jaxon with a smile. "You remind me a lot about her."

"Change much?" Natasha asked.

"A little." Steve stopped, staring up at an old flag post.

"This is a dead-end," Natasha sighed. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."

But Steve turned towards a structure past Natasha. Eyebrows knitted together as Jaxon walked up beside him. "Spot something?"

"Yeah, you could say that." The Super-soldier began walking towards the said structure. Natasha and Jaxon kept pace with him as they approached what appeared to be a depot or bunker of some sort.

"Arm regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks," Steve explained, looking to Natasha. "This building is in the wrong place."

Using his shield, Steve broke the lock before pulling the door open. The metallic squeal filled the night air as the trio carefully made their way down the flight of steps. At first glance, in the darkness, Jaxon could pick apart the few desks and chairs in the moonlight from the door. Perhaps an office?

The room was much larger than Jaxon had expected and filled with more desks and chairs than he could have imagined. Each surface collected dust with only a few phones left over.

"This is S.H.I.E.L.D." Natasha nodded, gesturing to the large insignia on the wall far away.

Jaxon brushed his fingers over a desk. "You woulda expected them to get rid of this place," he pointed out. "This isn't something you just keep out in the open."

"Maybe this is where they started," Steve guessed. "So far back that the file on this place was lost."

They continued through the facility until reaching a back room. Upon stepping inside, they were welcomed by shelves and filing cabinets. Cobwebs hung to the edge of surfaces with shattered glass on the floor around a desk in front of them.

Natasha hummed, nodding to a row of pictures, three individuals. "And there's Stark's father."

"Howard," Steve replied, staring intently at the picture of the man with nicely styled hair and a mustache.

But the picture on the fire right wasn't smashed like the others. "Who's the girl?" Natasha asked, looking to Steve.

Judging by the silence and sorrowful stare Steve had, Jaxon took a pretty wild guess. "Agent Carter," he answered for the man. Steve glanced at him, giving a tiny nod before turning and walking down one of the rows of empty shelves.

Noticing a draft between the crack of two shelves, Steve glanced at the two assassins. Jaxon seemed to understand as he pulled his gun free from the back of his pants and stood on the opposite side of Steve. Pressing himself against the shelf and giving Steve a stiff nod.

"If you're already working in a secret office..." When Steve pulled it open, Jaxon came out of cover with his gun levelled to any threat. Lowering his weapon when he was met by a dual metal door, his brows knitting together. "...why do you need to hide the elevator?"

Pulling out her phone, Natasha hovered a blue light over the keypad. It scanned the buttons and it revealed the code by the fingerprints left. 8539. She pressed the combination, and the elevator dinged, the doors opening with the light turning on.

As they stepped inside, Jaxon frowned deeply. Glancing around the metal deathtrap in a weird set of confusion that tugged at the bottom of his stomach. An unsettling feeling.

"Jax, what is it?" Natasha asked as she noticed the man's cautious eyes. She'd seen them many times before and knew that it only meant trouble.

"There's something here..." he paused as Steve looked back at him. "I can feel it."

When the doors opened, the room waiting for them was pitch black. The whirling sound of machines working was faint. And as they stepped further out of the elevator, the doors shutting behind them, Jason could make out the glow of buttons on a desk ahead of them.

The automated lights turned on, revealing their surroundings. Old tech filled the room, likely never removed since they had been installed, Jaxon supposed since the '40s or maybe even later. They also stood in front of a desk that appeared to be the main hub for all the information on these old storage servers.

"This can't be the data point," Natasha said. "This technology is ancient."

Stepping up to the desk, Jaxon tilted his head slightly at a device that seemed brand-new. Wires plugged into the back of it and connected to the old computer that it rested on. "I think you may be wrong about that, Nat," he said. "Here, pass me that for a sec."

Doing as was asked of her, Natasha handed him the SD drive. He carefully plugged it in and instantly, the machines surrounding them turned on in sync. "I swear to god if I activated some nuclear bomb--"

"Then I would kick your ass," Natasha interjected, smirking at the deadpan Jaxon held. "Out of love, of course."

Their conversation was cut off by an indistinct voice emitting from the computer. "Initiate System?" It read as Natasha let out a heavy sigh. "Y-E-S spells yes." She typed it out and pressed enter with the sound of the system beginning to power up to life.

A smirk tugged at her lips as she raised an eyebrow. "Shall we play a game?" She asked aloud before looking back at the two men. "It's from a movie that was really--"

"I know, I saw it."

The screen began to flicker with what seemed to be an image trying to fabricate. Jaxon couldn't make out much of what was beginning to appear, but he saw glasses and a nose.

"Rogers, Steven, born 1918," the computer said as the camera on the main monitor turned. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianova, born 1984."

Then it turned to Jaxon, who stared right back at it with a tilt of his head. "Carter, Jaxon, born 1991."

"It's some kind of recording."

"I'm not a recording, Fraulein," the computer replied. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am."

A picture on a smaller monitor showed a man that looked to be the man on the bigger screen. "Steve, you know this guy?" Jaxon asked, his hand holding his gun tightened.

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull," Steve said as he rounded the computer. "He's been dead for years."

"First correction, I am Swiss," Zola announced.

"I don't people care about the specifics, Humpy Dumpty," Jaxon spat.

"That's interesting coming from a world-renowned killer," Zola chuckled. "Rogers, did Jaxon ever tell you that he killed a family of 5 with his own hands? Or let Augusta, Georgia go up in flames from a missile attack by China?"

Steve's eyes stayed fixated on Jaxon as he stared directly at the camera. In his form of shock at the information. Jaxon couldn't do that, could he? He wouldn't kill a family, no matter the circumstances, right? Did he seriously let hundreds to thousands die from something he could've prevented? Jaxon felt himself spiralling the more and more he thought about it.

He didn't think of himself to be capable of such a thing. And it sickened him to his stomach to even think that he did do those things. Who in the hell was he?

"Secondly, look around you," Zola continued. "I have never been more alive. In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Steve questioned.

"Invited."

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War 2," Natasha said aloud. "S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"They thought I could help their cause," Zola said. "I also helped my own."

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve butted in sternly.

"Cut off one head," Zola said, "two more shall take its place."

"Prove it."

The screens began to flicker with old films and files appearing on multiple monitors. "Accessing archive." A video feed on the far left began to play, gaining the trio's attention.

"HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom," Zola explained. "What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist."

More footage was shown of Steve battling HYDRA soldiers and other military troops fighting. "The war taught us much," Zola said. "Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly."

"After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited." A picture of the man appeared. "The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D."

"For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible," Natasha spoke up. "S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you."

"No, they wouldn't." Both Natasha and Steve turned to Jaxon as he stared at the screen. "If they've been inside S.H.I.E.L.D., then they just needed a member to rise to power."

Jaxon could only piece it together as it resembled a lot of what he'd gathered on Quantum. "When they had a person in control, they just tugged at the right strings to play in the favour they wanted," he explained. "It was rigged before anyone could even realize it."

"HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security," Zola said. "Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world will arise."

"We won, Captain," he told the Super-soldier. "Your death amounts to the same as your life. A zero-sum."

Steve suddenly punched the monitor as it slowly powered down. "Someone had to shut him," Jaxon muttered.

"As I was saying..."

"Oh, come on, man!"

"What's on this drive?" Steve exclaimed, moving to the next screen that Zola's face occupied.

"Project insight requires insight," Zola replied. "So, I wrote an algorithm."

Jaxon the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he could hear voices filling his mind. Turning his head slightly as they seemed to get louder each moment.

"What kind of algorithm?" Natasha inquired. "What does it do?"

"The answer to your question is fascinating," he said. "Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

Another set of blast doors to their elevator suddenly began to close. Steve spun around and threw his shield to try and hold them open. But they shut before he could do so, his shield ricocheting off the wall and catching it when it came back to him.

Natasha stared at her phone with her face dropping. "Steve, we've got a bogey," she announced. "Short-range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"I can feel them," Jaxon added. "12 men, at least."

"Who fired it?" Steve questioned.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," She replied.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Zola cut in. "Admit it. It's better--"

Two gunshots rang out with Jaxon shooting the camera and the screen. Turning around and sprinting over to where Steve ripped up a grate and hopped inside with Natasha.

As he hopped in with the two, the missile had hit and blew up the structure they stood under. Holding his hands out above him, Jaxon created a force field that blocked out most of the debris. Steve and Natasha watched as the man gritted his teeth under the weight of the concrete he held.

Jaxon had never felt so much pain in his life. Neither had he used this much energy in his powers before. It was eating away at his heart that pounded against his chest erratically. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he let out a yell of agony as he pushed his body's limit.

"Steve!" He yelled. "Get your shield ready. Protect Natasha."

The strength in Jaxon's powers was faltering as he felt his body start to double over. And then his body gave out, and some pieces of rubble came tumbling down on him. He covered his hand and curled up as he grunted with the chunks that hit his back and hands harshly.

But when they stopped, Jaxon keeled over and panted. His back screaming in agony with a cry leaving his lips. His mind was in a slight daze from the number of rocks that had thudded off the crown of his head.

He let out panicked breaths as he was left in a tight constructive position. His body was forced to the ground and curled up in a ball. Short of breath from inhaling dust and dirt as he tried to crane his head to look for light, but found only pitch black. His chest tightened with each moment as his breaths became more laboured.

"Steve," he groaned. "Steve! Steve, are you there?"

No response was given as Jaxon tried to move, but felt more of the rubble shift and constrict him further to the ground. The blood coursing through his vein pounded in his ears like a drum. Fear rising in his stomach in a nauseating way. Are they dead? Is Natasha okay?

When he tried to use his power to push the rubble on him, he cried out. He needed to get out. His hands trembled, reaching out for something that could help him. Get out, Jaxon. Get out. Get out. Get out!

A grunt filled the air as the rubble covering Jaxon lessened in weight. "Jaxon!" Steve called out. "Jaxon, are you okay?"

Relief filled Jaxon's panicked state as he nodded to himself. "I'm here!" He said. "I'm here! Please, get me out of here!"

With that request, another grunt filled the air with the rubble being pulled off him. A hand grasped Jaxon's arm as he was faced by Steve. "Are you okay?"

Jaxon took a moment, his mouth dry as he painfully swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah," he muttered. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Okay, we need to go," Steve told him. "Carry Natasha. I got you covered if they start following us."

He nodded, following Steve to where Natasha lay unconscious. Jaxon rapidly lifted her into his arms as they stepped out of the small confinements. Whatever the large facility they once were in was no more. Flames blossomed with the rubble and a sizeable creator being only a few feet away.

But Jaxon wasn't focused on that. He was fixated on the woman in his arms. Following Steve out of the destruction and jogging with his eyes frequently going down to the redhead. That fear he thought he was saved from only grew ten folds. And all he could think was, Save her. Please, just save her.