Her boots clicked against the floor tiles in the stark white corridor, her black cape flowing behind her, desperately attempting to keep a grin from her face. Her completely black ensemble cast a menacing shadow in the harsh light the ceiling lamps gave off. One that was far more intimidating than the inner workings of the girl herself.

She strode quickly, and every few seconds her lips attempted to pull up into a grin, but she quickly schooled them back to a neutral state. Inside, she was absolutely giddy.

She was being summoned by her trainers, her higher ups, her masters. Their commander-in-chief, even. She’d been given missions in the past, and this was always how they began. She would be summoned by them and they would inform her of what she was tasked with. She would obviously accept and she would be given the deadline by which she was supposed to have it all finished.

Since the Winter Soldier’s disappearance, they’d been a bit distracted to continue with their usual missions. This would be her first in the last month at least. They’d ordered her to lay low and wander the city searching for any sign of Captain America or Falcon, a task she’d taken personally and with plenty of zeal. Her heart beat faster every time she thought she’d found him, Captain America, but it was a case of mistaken identity each time.

Every night after returning unsuccessful, and every morning before heading back out, she studied their files extensively. Mostly Captain America’s. That was their main target, right? She studied Black Widow’s file on her own time, as well, just in case the woman could lead her to the men she was searching for. But just like with the captain, Black Widow was a no go, too. Just mistaken identity time after time and nothing more.

It was frustrating and tiring, but she found the energy to clamber out of bed and start anew every day to search for the only person who could possibly understand anything she was. It was exhaustive and it was such a large area to comb day after day. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d been to his now-abandoned apartment before they pulled her out of the city and started sending her to the surrounding areas.

She remembered the end of the first week when she’d been doing this and she’d finally let the frustration get to her. She’d been poring over his file again and again, hoping some secret would just pop out at her, like it was hidden right under her nose.

“Why can’t you idiots just call him?” She’d screamed at the top of her lungs in the empty room. It wouldn’t have mattered if anyone heard. They wouldn’t have done anything but ignore her and keep walking anyway.

She was glad they were giving her something new to do, even if it was inspiring work, it was horribly drab and dull to walk through the streets every day in some of her best clothes. The stares and cat calls didn’t help much, either. She’d even been groped once and that man had wound up with a swift kick between the legs with a silent prayer that the captain hadn’t seen, of course. That would be just her luck, wouldn’t it? To be within a hundred feet of the captain and only to have him see her kicking some deserving male and have him disappear before she could do a thing about it. Before she would even know he’s there.

Of course, it would be hard to miss the captain, wouldn’t it? She heard he was very charismatic, and sort of had a way of standing out that he couldn’t quite help. Fit, fast, tall, blonde . . . Definitely be hard to miss.

And she’d be damned if she didn’t find him some day.

She opened the heavy doors that led to the conference room. A few bodies sat there, waiting for her. They were different than the faces she’d been enlisted under. Most of them, anyway. She didn’t know names very well, but it wasn’t like they were used very often to begin with. Not like they ever called her by her real name.

“Take a seat, Lithium.”

She did so promptly, sitting across the room from the heads of each department, feeling scrutinized in the way she was obviously outnumbered and the way they all held their heads so high. Like they were looking down on her. She’d taught herself a while back, since she’d been altered, to hold her chin high as well. She was not inferior to them. They’d chosen her. She was just as important as them, if not more so. They did not have her abilities. They were not her. And she was special. That was why she’d been brought here in the first place.

And she would never let them forget her place as one of their most stable achievements. Or the fact that she was capable of things they couldn’t fathom ever doing themselves.

She nearly smiled, but quickly suppressed it. They hated when she smiled during a meeting. Or in general. She was far from fond of that quirk they all seemed to share.

“Lithium,” the man spoke. She recognized him as the lead scientist. He seemed to have risen to power since the downfall of Pierce and other higher-ups. He’d been the one to inject her. He’d been the one to make her what she was now. And he still got a sense of  wonder to his eyes every time she walked into a room.

Of course, she had that effect on most men. Even in her business attire, which had yet to be used as anything other than her day clothes when she was trapped in this place, far underground. She nearly laughed, but again, kept inside. Their organization name and base of operation certainly didn’t match.

‘More like Terra,’ she thought, wanting to roll her eyes, not even realizing she’d been spacing out, trapped in her own thoughts. They hated it when she did that. It was frustrating when they yelled at her for something she thought of as normal, acceptable and really, unavoidable. At least for her. She liked drifting off in her own thoughts. It was comforting. They, however, thought differently.

A ‘silly waste of time,’ they’d called it. A ‘reprieve from reality,’ she’d countered.

They didn’t care about her argument. They only told her not to let it happen again. That was far from happening anytime soon. The habit was too hard to break, assuming it was a habit and not just her own nature. She blinked as he commanded her attention again.

“Lithium!” He yelled, scoffing. “Are you even paying attention to me? Have you heard a word I said?” She frowned, rummaging quickly through her recent memory. Nothing. Not a shred of information had permeated her roaring mind. She shook her head once, much to his dismay, and she earned herself a glare from several of the men in the room. She knew if she looked at each of them in turn, eyes soft, giving a barely-there innocent smile, much of their anger would diffuse. She’d learned quickly exactly how to get what she wanted.

Of course, her moves wouldn’t help her on one of her two mentors, a blonde woman with green eyes who stood not too far away. And if she caught Lithium using the moves she’d been taught to get herself out of trouble, she’d be scolded later. While her female mentor was most definitely a smaller woman, she was beyond intimidating. Lithium thought it was quite unfair that a woman so small could have such a big presence.

A sigh broke through her reverie, just in time for her to catch the gist of what she was being told for the second, possibly third, time around.

“We’ve gotten a brief blip of information on the Winter Soldier. You’re to investigate and see if you can find him. If you get a lead, you’re to contact us immediately and-.”

“I know the drill. I hit the homing button, you guys sweep in and finish the job. Done and done. I can handle this. Though I wish one of these days you’d trust me enough to let me finish a mission up on my own.”

He frowned and sent another glare her way, especially after she’d had the nerve to interrupt him. “Not today, Lithium. Go pack your bags. You’re going overseas.”

“Overseas? Where did Mr. Antisocial go this time?” She questioned. She’d never met the one they called the ‘Winter Soldier’ personally but she’d seen him once. All other information was rumors. And soon she’d have his file personally delivered to her soon enough.

“You’ll know soon enough. We have the broad area, but your job is to pinpoint him before he moves on. Are we understood?”

“Understood, Sir.”

Their voices were unison, all of them speaking except for Lithium. “Hail Hydra.”

“Hail Hydra,” she murmured back, confused, but willing, to take on this mission.

Even if it meant abandoning the one that might lead her to Captain America. ‘It’s nothing but a bunch of dead ends,’ she told herself. It was the only way she could bring herself to leave the task behind. It didn’t help the way her heart sunk at the thought of giving up. Much less giving up her hopes of finding the captain.