Of Hybrids and HYDRA

Chapter 1: The Asset

Surry, England.

1994.

The Asset looks down at the motionless bodies of his Missions. All of them are dead. Another success. He looks for his handler amongst the approaching soldiers, their features hidden beneath large black suits and helmets. But he will recognize the footsteps. He watches as two of the Keepers drag a young boy from the wreckage of the building. He is short, too short for the suspected age. Black hair that seems to be perpetually messy hangs over his face, almost covering his glazed over green eyes. His Handlers have drugged him already.

"Come on Heinz. The doctor will want this one catalogued and prepped for the table." One of the men growls. They are all irritated. Asset can sense that as steps over the body of a large fat man and climbs into the truck that will take them back to the plane. They had come too far for a measly "little boy", but the doctor had insisted. "He will be useful to the cause". Asset still doesn't know how the doctors knew about him. The boy is slumped against one of the walls and looks like he is going in and out of consciousness. The two men who sat next to him converse quietly about the things they had seen today. New recruits often didn't have the stomach for the extractions. He wonders what they would do when they were back in the USA.

'Traitors! Cowards!' Assets mind spits, but he shuts the thoughts down quickly. His Handlers always seem to know his thoughts. These ones are dangerous. Asset winces as he straightens out his arm, the left one. It is causing problems again.

"I need a screwdriver" He says, making his presence known. His main Handler laughs. It is a scratchy sound that hurts his ears.

"We will fix you up when we get back." It is the standard response. Nothing sharp, pointed or potentially dangerous is allowed in his hands when the men are in such close quarters. They think he would hurt them.

'I should, I should kill them and try to escape. Get back to Steve.' Again with the dangerous thoughts. Who is Steve anyway?

The truck goes silent. The men all turn and look at him; someone in the back pulls out a syringe. His mind rebels against something and suddenly he is on his feet and five men are unconscious on the ground. He is confused. There is gun in his hand and he doesn't know where he pulled it from. He drops the weapon in confusion and fear. He doesn't remember why he had done it. He can't remember who Steve is but apparently his body does as he is suddenly attacking. Suddenly everything becomes clear. Where is he? What year is it? He has to find Steve! These men are his enemies. They had tortured him, drugged and disfigured him! He must find Steve! Steve Rogers. Captain America. A spirited boy who never could back down from a fight. His brother in everything but blood. Bucky grabs one of the men's guns and fires.

There is a sudden rush of everything. Then a simple prick in his neck and he begins to fall. They drugged him again. He couldn't let them take his memories again... He had to fight back... He had to fight... He had to...he had to...had to... ... Fight... Find Steve...Steve... Steve?

Blackness.

1996

Asset watches New One through the bars of the cage. New One had been with them for two years and the doctors were still working on him. After they had taken New One, they tell him he had helped, the doctors had experimented with the super soldier serum. New One had been a result of that. They hadn't wiped him, instead they had gone right into live testing. Now, two years later, the tiny sixteen year old was deemed ready.

Asset flinches when he hears New One move. The two had fought a week ago and he still aches from the defeat. The Doctors had told him that New One had been designed to defeat him. The fact that he could meant there was success and they could upgrade him soon as well. He isn't looking forward to that. He had heard New Ones screams from the other end of the Head Quarters. Upgrading was painful.

New one sits up in his cage. It isn't big like his own room, but New One is able to sit up just as well. It must help that he is tiny Asset supposes. Whatever they had given to him was obviously not working on New One like it had for himself. New One looks confusedly at Asset for a moment before he has crawled right to the edge of his cage and is staring Asset down. It is actually more like he is reading something in his eyes, but Asset looks away before anything can be discovered.

One of the handlers approaches them. Asset looks at him silently.

"We have orders to take you back to your cell." The handler speaks calmly. Asset nods and follows silently. He only looks back at the cage once before he continues on. New One will understand his place soon enough. Asset only wishes he could get a new Mission soon.

They put him back on ice instead.

2009

Asset watches for his Mission. He sees Weapon take down three of the guards outside of the base. The boy he had extracted eighteen years ago had become stronger than any of them had believed he could. Weapon wasn't large by any means. In fact he was nearing emaciated, Weapon simply refused to eat. Sometimes, when he was particularly tired, Asset would find himself seeing another skinny boy. With Baggy pants and a heart to big for his tiny body. Not to even mention the stubbornness. This boy however, spoke with pride and confidence. Weapon next to never spoke. He has always been quiet, docile.

"Finish the mission." His handlers commands are exactly what he needed to wake up. He had been daydreaming. 'Something Steve has always teased me for' Asset shakes himself awake. His mind was starting to play tricks again.

He watched as the trucks started to drive out of the base. They moved urgently and slightly over the speed limit. Firing quickly he takes out the obvious decoy and watched it flip over the railing of the bridge and over the cliff. They had hardly gained any ground and Asset had taken out a highly armed and protected government vehicle. The other is trapped, barricaded exactly where they are wanted. The passengers only option is to get out and run. Not exactly safe or logical. Asset predicts he could blow up the car before the Mission had opened the door. 'But Steve wouldn't like that.' The voice says again. In his confusion he almost misses the redhead pull the Mission behind herself as Weapon unleashes his assault on them. Weapon is once again saving his ass, 'like I did for Steve.' With an angry snarl he aims his gun and fires. It goes right through the red haired agent.

They told him it was a success right before they wiped him again.

This time it hurt more than usual.

Jan 2012

Asset watches the scientists dispassionately as they try to revive Weapon. This experiment went too far this time. Asset had watched in horrified silence as they had cut him open. Their reasoning was "to figure out where his power comes from". Weapon had called it magic in the few times he had ever spoken to Asset. He had lost too much blood, and the pain of having a vivisection had caused his heart to stop. Asset remembered when it was him on that table, screaming under the doctors hands. He could hardly bare to watch as his only friend died.

"We got him." One of the doctors says as the heart monitor has a blip of life. The heart is beating again. Weakly, but Weapon has survived. They say he will continue to survive under extreme conditions like this, they had added something directly into his heart and his bones. This new whatever combined with the serum already running around his brain would ensure that weapon could survive and resist even the harshest and most brutal of tortures.

They cut Weapon up several times after that. If only to prove and perfect their theory.

June 2012

The Handlers are kicking up a fuss today. Apparently an old enemy had woken up a month earlier than anticipated. They told him and Weapon to be ready for something. Asset didn't understand.

'Captain America' they said. The Avengers. Earth had been saved by them a month earlier and HYDRA is still reeling from the lack of control they had over that situation. Not to mention the panicked decision to nuke Manhattan.

'Steve Rogers' his mind insists. Asset grumbles as he works on his arm. Weapon is throwing his knives at the practice targets, it is half assed but he never misses. Asset hates how Weapon had been "bred" to defeat him. It is like they don't trust him. But then again, they had taken Weapon only a month after his first "Episode" as they called it.

"You know that Steve can help you." The traitorous voice whispers in the back of his mind. 'Steve is your best friend. He can help Harry too.' Who is Harry? Asset wonders he has never met a Harry before. Maybe it is one of the experiments that hadn't gone well. Asset pushes the thought to the back of his head. It is no use thinking about that stuff now. The handlers approach them carefully. Suddenly, Weapon seems to go mad. He throws his knives at the handlers. It takes five of them to bring him down. Asset watches impassively. He knows he should feel something, but the is nothing there.

Asset hears later that they took Weapon back to the research labs. They say there is something wrong with him, something they need to fix. He doest see Weapon again until they say he has a new Mission. Two years later.

April 2014.

Weapon is taller. He wears a suit now and looks almost indistinguishable from the regular agents that they have in SHIELD. A well dressed gentleman. He was allowed to grow his hair out. Only Asset can see the feral animal that hides in his deceptively blank eyes.

"You have a new mission." He has said that sentence three times already. Asset hates what the handlers have done to his friend. He is almost unrecognizable from the 17 year old boy he is supposed to be. Asset just nods in reply. He has very little to say to this thing they turned Weapon into.

"Nick Fury, head of SHIELD. He must be exterminated." Weapon informs him before turning away and being led back to his cell. His handler takes him to the location of the Mission. The job is fast. Nick Fury lies dead in his totalled car before two hours have passed.

Weapon is kept locked up while Asset is on his mission. They run more tests on him than usual. It hurts. He is kept chained and naked. They wipe his memories everyday. Soon it becomes ineffective, they keep doing it anyway, they know it hurts him. Weapon doesn't know how much time has passed since Asset went away. He only knows that it has been more than usual. At first, the people go away slowly. Then there is a rush. The soldiers are hurrying to pack everything away, they say they are going back to Germany. The doctors are the last to leave. They give all of the experiments something. Including himself, Weapon doesn't understand why they are not taking him. Wasn't he important?

The needle is as painless as the other ones, but it makes him dizzy and tired. He falls asleep. When he wakes up next the doctors are gone. His vision is fuzzy so he sleeps again. He doesn't know how long sleeps this time, but there is mould growing on the walls and the smells of rotting corpses fill his nostrils. He passes out from the smell its self. He slips in and out of consciousness of days afterwards. He doesn't really understand what is happening, but he knows that whatever the doctors gave him before they left had meant to kill him, and it didn't work.

'Perhaps,' Weapon thinks deliriously as his vision blacks out again, 'I should call myself the Boy Who Lived'

TBC.

A/N: This is a redo of my fic Hybrids and HYDRA. If you haven't read the original, sorry. If you have and liked it, also sorry. I feel that I have written myself into a hole concerning this fix and want to be able to get where I thought I was going when I started writing it. Again, sorry, but not sorry.