FILE n°888 | SUBJECT RED

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HYDRA base
siberia, unknown
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march 8th, 2014

It had been roughly about a year since the Soldier remembered Sashenka. Since that very moment in Odessa where he had carried her limp body in his arms back to the Facility, he had sworn to himself that he would do anything and everything to protect his daughter. This meant not letting anyone know that he remembered her. So, for the next two years, the father and daughter didn't acknowledge one and other except for the brief interactions that they would have when the guards were not around. For the first year, almost every single mission Sashenka went on, the Soldier would follow, until she turned eleven years old. After that day, HYDRA deemed that the now eleven year old was old enough to carry out small missions by herself, when the mission lasted longer than a few weeks, the Soldier was brought along, to make sure the child carried out the mission. It was during those long missions, where only one or two agents accompanied them that the father and daughter could interact with each more. They spoke in English, because the guards only understood Russian and assumed the Soldier was briefing the girl. They were all convinced that there was no way he could remember her after they had wiped his mind, so they were less vigilant.

During the last two years, Sashenka had grown and changed. She was no longer a small, wide eyed little girl, no, she was now two years older. The guards had taken it upon themselves to cut the girl's hair that had become greasy, oily and matted over the years, since her showers mostly consisted of guards throwing buckets of ice cold water at her naked form while they laughed at her incapacity to fight back. Her red hair now reached her shoulders and was unevenly cut. The front pieces were shorter, causing her hair to form some type of curtain bangs that the Soldier had to pin back himself before each mission.

Ever since Sashenka had fallen back into the hands of HYDRA, she was constantly being sent on missions, which inevitably led to the girl accumulating scars and injuries over her body. The top half of her left ear had been slightly nicked by a knife that had been thrown at her face during one of her first missions. It wasn't immediately noticeable at first glance and didn't affect her hearing, which was always nice. Another one was a scar that caused a small slit in her right eyebrow. This one didn't have a particularly terrifying backstory, Sashenka had tripped over her Papa's foot and hit her head on the side of a table during a mission. Her Papa had laughed about it when they were alone after her stitched were done. Finally, her worst and most recent injury had been acquired during her last solo mission in Sweden. An explosive had gone off where was standing and the heat had caused her to lose sight in her left eye. She had been rushed back to the HYDRA base where the doctors had replaced her blind eye with a brand new one. When Sashenka had woken up after that, she had looked at herself in the reflection of the metal tray and noticed that she now had one blue eye and one green eye. It didn't feel very different to before, it just felt like she had a normal pair of eyes.

Her past missions ever since returning to HYDRA had made her a world famous assassin just like her parents once were. Her and her Papa were both ghost stories for most. While they called him the Winter Soldier, she had gained the new name of the Shadow Weaver. The Shadow Weaver was an assassin that stayed put in the shadows until, just like a vulture, she leaped from the darkness to finish off her prey and left without a single witness, the same way she came in. Most people tended to underestimate her in her first year, now, she became, just like her father, an assassin credited with close to fifty assassinations over the past two years.

While she occasionally had a few moments to catch up with her Papa, there were also moments with him that Sashenka would give her left arm to have erased from her memory forever. See, when her Papa refused to carry out a mission willingly, his Superiors would use his trigger words against him. Sashenka didn't have any, she was threatened with having some, sure, but that always caused her to carry out missions willingly, hoping it would diminish the amount of beatings she got from the guards.

When the Superiors used her Papa's trigger words on him, they could make him do anything they wanted, it didn't matter because when he broke out of his trance, he couldn't remember anything he had done as the Winter Soldier. Which is why Sashenka never told him what they made him do to her.

They would drag Sashenka into a training ring that resembled an immense cage and bring the Soldier in. The Soldier was given the order to fight Sashenka until eventually, she could manage to defend herself from him. It never worked. She would spend hours trapped in this cage with a broken shell of a man that once was her father, getting beat, punched, kicked and thrown against the metal walls of the cage. She would mostly end up with broken bones, a face so bruised up that she could barely see and the fight only ended when she was on the ground, bleeding and knocked out. Sashenka remembers begging for her life in that cage, only to have her father stare blankly at her, focused on carrying out the orders he was given. No amount of screaming and crying could get him to snap out of it.

Sashenka would cry and scream for her life until she lost her voice. She would throw punch and kicks until her legs gave out on her and she was left to crawl on the ground to get away from him. The guards all watched her, laughing and jeering, their bets placed on how long she would last before each session. Yes, Sashenka was one of the best assassins in the world, but what was the best assassin in the world against the man who made her and knew her inside out? Nothing.

The worst part was lying to him when they saw each other the next day. Sashenka had to lie through her teeth to him because she knew that he would never forgive himself if she told him the truth. Anyways, it's not like he could do anything about it. Sashenka tried repeating that it wasn't his fault to herself, but that didn't help with the fact that he was the one breaking her ribs, causing her to bleed into unconsciousness regularly. It was always the same excuses, a guard went too hard on her during training, a mission gone wrong, she had talked back when she wasn't supposed to things like that that easily made her Papa believe her because in a place like this, Sashenka couldn't be far from telling the truth anyways.

Nightmares about these sessions would plague her nightly and her Papa's trigger words would bleed into her thoughts throughout the day.

"Longing."

"Rusted."

"Furnace."

"Daybreak."

"Seventeen."

"Benign."

"Nine."

"Homecoming."

"One."

"Freight car."

"Subject!" The English speaking voice of Alexander Pierce pulled her out of her trance. She was surprised to find him here. He had been spending more and more time outside the facility recently. Sashenka suspected that it had something to do with "the big break" that she had heard some guards around the facility mention. She walked over to where Pierce was sitting as he beckoned her towards him. The affection that Pierce held for Sashenka was odd, to say the least. The girl suspected it had something to do with the fact that his wife was a red headed woman and that their daughter had died a few years before Sashenka was brought to the facility for the first time. While Pierce appeared to simply adore Sashenka and went out of his way to always have a little "chat" with the girl every time he was at the facility, the twelve year old couldn't help but think that Pierce was very cuckoo, as she called it, upstairs.

As she slowly approached the man who was sitting at his desk surrounded by HYDRA officers and guards alike, Pierce stood up to pick the girl up in his arms. "How's my little feather doing?" Sashenka shuddered at the nickname.

"Training sessions are going fairly wel-" One guard started speaking in broken English, only to get interrupted by Pierce.

"I wasn't talking to you, jackass. I was talking to our Subject, here."

Everyone looked at Sashenka intently, the guard that foresaw her training lifted the shock collar he always made her wear. He was threatening Sashenka into answering him.

"Good." She said. Sashenka had always been a child of very few words. It was surely due to the fact that she had been unable to speak for the first few years of her life until the Red Room and even there, she was never much asked to speak.

"Well, that's always nice to know." Pierce shooed the guards and officers out of the room, standing up to lock the doors behind them. "You want a candy?" He started opening the package wrapped around a strawberry lollipop, taking advantage of the fact that Sashenka's mouth was slightly open to put the lollipop in her mouth. Sashenka couldn't help but close her eyes in pure bliss, as the sugary treat melted on her tongue.

"Now, I want you to do something for me." Pierce spoke up, pacing around his office while Sashenka contently watched him, keeping an eye out for any threat that may put her at risk. "I'm going to send you on a little recon mission, just to check that everything is going smoothly with something I have planned."

When Sashenka didn't answer, he continued.

"You're going to report back to me and confirm the fact that this man named Rumlow, that secretly works for HYDRA from SHIELD is actually doing his job."

"No kill?" Sashenka finally spoke up.

"No, unless it's absolutely necessary. I want no evidence of you ever being there, no witnesses and no kills. Nick Fury, that motherfucker, is going to have two of his SHIELD agents be on that mission. Now, I haven't spoken to Rumlow yet, but I'm ninety five percent sure that one of these clowns is going to be Captain America."

Captain America? Sashenka thought. "Shit name." She spoke bluntly.

"Indeed." Pierce agreed.

"And the other?" She asked.

"No idea, maybe Barton, Hill, Romanoff or another one of those bozos." Pierce waved her question about the second agent off quickly, like it was unimportant. He made sure not to spend too much time talking about those SHIELD agents.

Pierce carried on detailing the goal of SHIELD's mission and then finally her own. Rumlow's team was being sent on a mission to recapture the Lemurian Star, a ship which had been hijacked by the group of pirates led by Georges Batroc, a French lunatic that had accumulated eighty something kills before getting fired by the French. He now led a group of pirates and was Interpol's most wanted criminal, apparently he was being hired by Nick Fury to hijack the ship to cover for one of his agents who was in charge of uncovering secret information regarding Project Insight. Sashenka's mission was simple, infiltrate, make sure that Rumlow was carrying out the mission and not breaking character or betraying HYDRA and get out of here.

No kills, no witnesses, just her.

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Sashenka hated the water. She hated the sea, especially when it was dark like it was right now. During a mission in Japan, she had heard adults discussing a supposedly extinct creature that scientists thought maybe still existed. One of the adults described it as a twelve to thirteen meter long shark called the megalodon. Since then, Sashenka had developed an acute dislike for the ocean.

The ship she was currently infiltrating looked like an ordinary cargo ship, only guards armed with heavily loaded guns were patrolling the ship's perimeter. Reminding herself that she should minimize the killing Sashenka discreetly hoisted herself over the side of the ship, silently walking behind one of the guards until the man reached the door that Sashenka assumed led to the engine room. Deciding on using that as a shortcut, she grabbed the man in a chokehold, pulling him through the door and kicking his gun out of his hand by using her foot to pin his arm back. After a hard hit in a pressure point, the guard was out cold on the floor.

A few floors below her she heard the sound of a fight going on. She walked closer to the edge near the railing looked downwards just as a man was thrown over the metal railing below. The twelve year old's eyebrows rose, this must be the doing of one of Nick Fury's agents. She heard the sound of a woman's voice speaking into an earpiece.

"Engine room secured."

Maybe it was the fact that Pierce hadn't told her who the second agent was, or maybe it was just the fact that it was in her nature to be curious but Sashenka felt the growing urge to take a discreet look at who the raspy voice belonged to, considering it sounded so very familiar to her.

Curiosity killed the cat, Sashenka. She heard her Papa's voice reprimand her in her head. He was right, if Sashenka wanted this mission to go as swiftly as possible, she had to keep her eyes on the task at hand and not get side-tracked. So, using all of the strength that she had in her mind, Sashenka steeled herself and walked away from the scene, deciding to devote her skill set to finding Rumlow and making sure he wasn't doing anything he wasn't supposed to. On the level below her, Natasha Romanoff hit one on the guards hard with a metal pipe, before dropping it and walking away.

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Meanwhile, not far away from Natasha, Steve Rogers stood facing Georges Batroc.

"Je pensais que tu étais plus qu'un bouclier." Batroc said, staring at the super soldier that everyone called 'Captain America'. I thought you were more than just a shield.

Walking face first into the man's challenge, Steve removed his shield from where it was against his forearm, placing it on his back before taking off his blue mask. "On va voir." We shall see.

Batroc smiled, convinced that he had just gotten Captain America to fall into his poorly set trap so he could manage to beat him in a hand to hand combat. He threw the first punch, the man in front of him following up with a hit to the head and a kick to the ribs. Batroc stumbled back at the force of the punch, shielding his face from more attacks. He made another lunge for the enhanced man who saw him coming and brought his foot down on his knee. Batroc groaned in pain just as the audible shattering of his kneecap was heard.

And while Steve Rogers was preoccupied with delivering his final hits and punches to his opponent, he failed to notice right away that Sashenka, concealed in the shadows, had just brushed past the pair and was heading for the railing of the ship where she had come from, her mission completed.

A few seconds were all it took for Steve to get his attention drawn to the bright red hair in the corner of his eye. He punched Batroc hard in the middle of the face to buy himself a few moments, the man falling unconscious to the floor.

"Natasha?" He called, hoping that it was indeed Natasha. After all, he only could think of one red haired girl that would fit that description on this ship in this context.

Instead, he was met with the hardened face of a young child, with her foot halfway over the railing, ready to jump. The way the moonlight shone across her face defined her features, making them more noticeable. While the girl definitely had red hair just like Natasha's, only maybe lighter, the structure of her face and the way her cheekbones were high and defined made him think that this child resembled someone he knew, though he couldn't exactly pinpoint what or who it was because the child lept over board just as Batroc lunged for him again.

Anticipating his move, Steve through himself against the man's torso, pushing him further and further back until both of them were sent crashing through a door.

"Well, this is awkward." Natasha spoke up from where she was typing across one of the computer's keyboard.

"Paying no attention to the unconscious mercenary he had just fought, Steve made his way over to Natasha. "Did you see that girl?"

"What girl?" Natasha didn't take her eyes off of the screen.

"There was a young child that just jumped off the boat. She was wearing a suit just like yours and had weapons strapped to her belt."

Natasha's typing faltered. "What did you just say?"

"I'm just telling you what I saw." Steve said. "Besides, what are you doing? Our mission was to rescue hostages."

The thirty year old raised a single red brow at him and Steve couldn't help but notice that what Natasha just did was exactly what the child did before jumping off the boat. The way Natasha was looking at him right now made him rethink what he just saw. Besides, maybe that child could have been a hostage or one of Nick Fury's agents in training. Perhaps this was an eighteen year old who just looked way younger.

He promised himself he'd interrogate Fury about her. "No, that's your mission." Natasha's voice brought him back reminding him of the previous question he'd just asked her.

Natasha didn't seem too preoccupied with what Steve had just told her, so, for the sake of the mission and what she had been doing minutes before he came into this room, he let it go.

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"Mission report?" Alexander Pierce had his legs perched high on his desk, he was looking at the report in his hands while Sashenka stood in front of him, reporting on Rumlow's activity.

"Rumlow is clear. He was carrying out the mission." Sashenka spoke. Her red hair was dark due to the fact that it was still humid from jumping into the water and she couldn't wait to get out of this uncomfortable suit that was making her body temperature drop drastically.

"Any witnesses?" Pierce asked standing up and escorting Sashenka to the door.

Yes, her mind spoke. One. Captain America had seen her for just a few seconds before she disappeared. It was just a few seconds, she reassured herself. There was no way he could find out who she was after just taking a quick look at her.

"No." She lied.

"Good."

Pierce closed the door behind her.

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I was feeling generous this weekend so I decided to give you guys that first chapter of the Winter Soldier movie ! I might not be updating next weekend because of Christmas and family stuff so expect a chapter either this week or a the week after it all depends on how much teachers decide to annoy me this week!

I hope you guys enjoyed this introductory chapter to a new era of the Shadow Weaver, keep an eye out for more updates on the Steel Raven and Ephemeral in the next few days!

Also, yes the two lines of Cap and Batroc speaking French was me flexing the fact that one of my parents is French and that I can speak it fluently.

edit 29/12/2021 : i find it really ironic that this was published right before christmas last year and i'm editing it right after christmas this year lmao