Cruel World 3/? (Brainwashed HYDRA!Reader x Steve Rogers)
summary: A war between SHIELD and HYDRA rages on in the shadows of the world. You live for the kill as a Black Widow until you discover Steve Rogers, the weapon for the opposing side who makes you question the side you’ve been fighting for. (inspired by Underworld, just go with the lore on this fic pls)
Part 1 ~ Part 2
warnings: smut later, canon typical violence
word count: 2564
“This is the camp where I was trained,” Steve states as he lands the quinjet.
“Has it changed much?”
“A little,” he murmurs. I look at him as his tone changes. His eyes are distant, jaw clenched. He’s reminiscing.
“It must be tough,” I start and he looks at me to continue. “Being alive when everyone you know is gone.”
“You would know about that, wouldn’t you?” he responds with the words I used earlier.
“I guess so. One fell swoop.” A silence falls upon us and I pace through the base. An American base. I never thought I’d come here of all places, out of my own free will. “Once Dreykov wakes, he’ll set everything right.”
“You have so much faith in him,” Steve states but it was more of a question. He’s asking why.
“Wouldn’t you? If someone saved you from certain death, wouldn’t you believe in them? He has treated me like his own,” I defend.
“You say that the cycle has never been broken before. What will happen to you once all this is over?”
“I’ll be judged before our council,” I hold back.
“And then?” Steve raises a brow, sensing there was more.
“I’ll probably be executed.”
His heart drops, I can practically hear it. He turns sharply and stalks towards me. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks incredulously.
I shrug indifferently. “Those are our rules.”
He starts breathing heavily, shaking his head. “You can’t be okay with this? How can you just accept that? I won’t allow it-“
I chuckle. “Steve, you have no authority. This is the life I’ve chosen.”
“You haven’t chosen anything. They’ve indoctrinated you into a program, used you, all the Widows as their weapons. As if you’re not even people, just a means to their ends.” He puts his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look into his eyes.
“You’re making grave conclusions for someone who doesn’t know our ways.”
“I don’t need a fucking handbook, I’ve seen and heard enough.”
“You’re being ignorant, Steve. Don’t forget that we are not on the same side.”
“No,” we’re not, I expect him to say. “You’re being naive.”
I roll my eyes. “If you think so terribly of our ways then-“
“I’m not going to leave.” This man just loves to interrupt.
“Why not? I don’t need you anymore, Steve. My memories have enough evidence that you are alive. I need only to wait for Dreykov’s awakening and then we can take down Schmidt.”
He says my name in an almost defeated tone. “You need me,” he says simply. “I’m the only one who has your back in all of this. Not your sisters, not your Dreykov. Not even yourself.”
I cross my arms. “And how is that?”
“There’s a knife in your back and you don’t want to pull it out. You don’t even know it’s there.” His words cut deep but I try to shrug them off. He knows nothing. I look back at him and see his eyes have shifted to something behind me. He has a frown on his face though different to the one he was sporting when he was lecturing me.
“What?”
“Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks,” he states. He walks towards a building and breaks open the lock. “This building is in the wrong place.”
We walk inside, my gun drawn. I spot the insignia painted on the wall. “This is SHIELD,” I accuse and point the gun at him. “You took me to a SHIELD facility?”
“I didn’t know, I promise you.”
“I knew not to trust you.”
“I am the only one you can trust right now,” he exclaims. “I am the only one who hasn’t lied to your face. So go ahead. Shoot me.” He steps closer so that the gun is resting right between his eyes. “If you don’t trust me, fucking shoot me. Get rid of the only person who’s trying to help you while everyone else is trying to kill you.”
I examine him.
“Kill me or believe me, that’s your choice.”
I withdraw my gun. “You’re so dramatic.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” he answers.
I clench my jaw.
We enter a room with three portraits. Heads of SHIELD, I assume.
“That’s Howard Stark,” Steve says.
“Stark Industries,” I comment. “I’ve seen that logo on weapons HYDRA uses.”
Steve frowns. “That makes no sense, Howard wouldn’t work for HYDRA.”
Are you so sure, Captain? I think to myself. “Who’s the girl?”
“Nobody,” he replies too quickly. He turns away from me and walks down the room, spotting a bookshelf. His eyes scan through each shelf. “If you’re already working in a secret office, why do you need to hide the elevator?” He pushes a shelf and they part to reveal elevator doors.
“After you,” I state.
We both descend to the only floor available and turn the lights on to find a room full of old computers.
Somehow the computers jump to life. Must all be connected to the power.
“Captain Steve Rogers,” a voice calls out.
“Who’s there?” I respond, gun drawn.
“Calm yourself, Widow.” A face appears on the screens of the computers.
“Arnim Zola,” Steve states.
“You know him?” I ask.
“Scientist who worked under Schmidt.”
“How do I not know you?” I question.
“There is much you do not know, Dreykov’s experiment.”
“And yet you know me.”
“HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed.” Flashes of past news headlines and TV footage are shown on the screens as Zola speaks. Assassinations carried out by Assets or Widows. Facilities burning. “HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. You work with one of HYDRA’s most formidable Widows, your death for naught.” Steve punches the computer screen only for Zola to appear on another. “Alas, your affiliation with Dreykov’s experiment has made her a liability, no longer to be trusted.”
I frown. Excommunication? “Why do you keep calling me that?”
Zola states my full name as he did with Steve. “Family slaughtered in Odessa, adopted by Dreykov into the Black Widow program to serve this war. You who are so special that he kept you and your abilities a secret. He read that your DNA had the key to a serum stronger than that of Erskine’s. The power to activate a dormant gene in homo superiors, millennia’s worth of evolution, cut down to mere hours.”
“That is not true.”
“Oh?”
“I think I would know if I was experimented on. I’ve never healed as fast as Steve until…”
“The serum gave you abilities while your x-gene remained dormant, until a gross traumatic injury which otherwise would have killed you activated this mutation. It’s epigenetics, Widow.”
The gunshot wound.
“Why are you telling us all of this?” Steve asks.
“Because I’m stalling.”
The ground begins to rumble and all the computer screens shut down. Steve and I look at each other. I access the quinjet’s sentry mode through my communicator which detects a person. An Asset. My blood runs cold. Fuck.
“We have to get out of here.”
Steve finds an opening in the ground and we escape from under the building. I spot the Asset as he aims for us. Steve pushes us to the ground.
“Who is that?” he grunts. I hand him a gun.
“Get to the quinjet,” I say to him. I look back and squeeze my trigger. “It’s armed with machine guns. Shoot to kill.”
I hear Steve say my name but I ignore his calls as I run towards our enemy. Once upon a time I would have seen him as my ally.
I dodge the spray of bullets and jump up on a humvee, kicking him from the chin. He stumbles back as I land, pulling a knife out of one of my holsters. I slash at him but he counters my moves, blocking them with his metal arm then flinging the knife away. I used to be glad to have that metal arm on my side. His steel fingers grasp my throat and push me until my back hits the humvee but I grab another knife and stab it into his thick thighs with enough force to penetrate his reinforced combat trousers. I hear him grunt behind his mask but I slip from under him, rolling under the humvee. As I run towards the quinjet which is now in the air I hear him kick the humvee out of his way. Fuck. A spray of bullets forms a wall between the Asset and I as I climb up the ramp of the jet but not before I shoot my handgun, the bullet ricochets from the bulletproof lens of his mask. I enter the cockpit to see the Asset remove his mask.
“Steve you have a clear shot,” I say but he stares at the Asset, now with his mask off.
“Bucky?”
The Asset points his grenade launcher at us.
“Steve if you won’t take the shot, I will.” I walk towards the trigger but Steve pulls the jet up so I stumble and the Asset misses. “What are you doing?!” I exclaim.
“We’re not killing him,” Steve says with finality. He flies the jet away from the base.
“He’ll catch up to us,” I shake my head as I sit down. “He’ll find us and he’ll kill us, Steve you don’t know him-“
“I do.”
“What do you mean?” I notice he puts the jet on autopilot.
“I’ve known him all my life,” he turns his seat around and looks up at me. How could he possibly…
“James,” I realise. I scoff at how convenient and absurd this all is. “Schmidt takes your best friend and turns him into our most formidable Asset. This is bullshit.” I start to pace. “So there’s no way you’ll kill him but he won’t stop until he kills us. Isn’t that just perfect?” I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind.
“I thought I lost him… But I’ll get him back.”
“It’s not that simple,” I tell him.
“Why? He probably just didn’t see me. Once he does, he’ll stop coming after us.”
I shake my head desperately. “No, Steve. He won’t know who you are.” I sit in the chair next to him. “Assets… have no memory of their past lives. They’re not like Widows, they come from a different kind of clean slate.”
I expect to see him looking at me with disgust. How could I be okay with this happening to people around me? But he doesn’t. Steve only looks determined. “Then we’ll find a way to get his memories back.”
“Odessa,” I say. Before explaining, I enter the coordinates . “There’s an abandoned HYDRA facility, a scientist specialising in cerebral reprogramming-“
“Brainwashing,” Steve corrects.
I nod. “Brainwashing- he was based there until SHIELD came and tried to take him away. He was labelled a traitor so he was executed. That’s our only clue.”
“How do you know about this?” Steve questions.
“Dreykov trusted me with everything… A Widow defected from us, she was the one to try to take the scientist.”
Steve frowns. “A Widow?”
“Natalia Romanova. She tried to kill Dreykov.” The thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Just imagining Dreykov dead along with my family… I would never have survived that night without him.
“How do… how do you know that Dreykov doesn’t have something to do with all this?”
I turn sharply to face him. “Don’t. There’s no way.”
“I’m just saying-“
“Steve, he saved my life. He took me in. He didn’t have to do that but he did.” He saved me in more ways than I can count.
“I’m not saying these things are related-“
“I’m not gonna listen to this, Steve.”
“Like you didn’t listen to me about HYDRA?”
I close my eyes and exhale shakily. “Steve, I mean it.”
“You’re only fighting me because you have doubts now too! Just face it, Dreykov is HYDRA, HYDRA feeds crises, reaps war, takes away freedom! I mean look at you!” he exclaims. “You had blind faith in this organisation, you and your Widow Sisters! They’ve got you all buying into the lie that they care about you while they send you on missions to kill innocent people all while not giving a shit about you when you’re no longer useful to them!” He stalks closer towards me.
“You’re. Wrong.” I glare at him and if looks could kill…
“I need you to face reality.” He looks at me so sincerely that my eyes sting. Why does he have to look like he cares so much? Why couldn’t he just be what I’ve been led to believe SHIELD is? It would be so much easier to hate him. I sense hesitation in his expression as tears threaten to expose how hurt I feel. He’s turned my whole world upside down in a matter of days… “I need you to…” he trails off, his eyes flickering from mine down my face to my shuddering lips.
I bite them to control the trembling but I hear Steve sigh.
“Need me to what?”
“I need you to open your mouth.” His voice is somehow deeper.
I gulp before doing as he says. His lips crash onto mine, his tongue exploring my mouth, almost fighting with mine. Our lips move in tandem, as if we didn’t even need to think about it. One of Steve’s hands rests on my cheek and I hear him inhale deeply as if taking me in. As if to devour me. I would let him.
His other hand is on my waist but it slowly snakes to the dip in my back and he presses me closer to his body. So close that I feel a hardness against my belly. I gasp and slowly pull away in surprise at the growing bulge and he sucks on my tongue as we part. The tear that had been slowly building finally fell down my cheek but he brushes it off with his thumb. He rests his forehead on mine.
“I’m sor-“
It’s my turn to interrupt him as I stop his apology with a tug on his blonde messy hair. I pull his head back with it to expose his neck and I place a gentle kiss on his pulse point. Steve sighs. I feel his heartbeat on my lips, his scent musky with sweat and smoke fills my senses. He’s all around me and all over me. He’s in me. I give his neck a long teasing lick, ending up at his ear. I tug on his lobe with my teeth and he chuckles.
“Have you ever fucked someone on a jet before?” I whisper into his ear, I just know that my voice travelled through him, gracing parts of him I could never physically touch.
He shakes his head at my question. “But I’m about to.”
Can we all agree Logan fucks your with your legs over his shoulders?
He cannot get enough of his woman, with your legs over his shoulders.. he’ll rub his hands up and down them and caress them, kissing your knees and inner thighs.
He loves when you’re touchy too, he wants your hands all over him like your begging for it, sliding them against his arms while he holds himself up.
