Zola's choice

Summary:
February 4, 2015: Two enemies reunite in the present time.

NYC

The Big Apple


Characters

NPCs

  • <Hydra Goons>
  • <Unnamed Shield Agent>

Mood Music:
[*<http://insert.video.or.music.link.here>]


A frozen wind wafts past through the crowded city streets covered in a thick layer of the white stuff. Snow some pure as a freshly made sheet of paper, others tinged a dull grey thanks to the pollution of the city. People make their way to and fro moving completely unaware of anything other then their cellphones. Most of them don't notice the small trail of red drops staining the freshly fallen snow, leading through a dimly lit alley way, the trails of someone being dragged already fading away in the mid-evening snowfall.

-

Steve Rogers is coming home after another extremely long day at SHIELD. The hours bleed together, seep by into days and now weeks. The attacks on three major cities, HYDRA, the attack on the Triskelion, the wares stolen from Stark Industries, and — Steve is sure he's forgetting something as he hums along in New York traffic aboard his vintage Harley Davidson, knowing that he'll be unable to sleep tonight. So he'll keep working. He makes no move to hide, wearing his shield over the front of his bike and his normal fatigues as he parades towards Brooklyn.

Most don't notice the stain, and Steve probably wouldn't have had he not seen something out of the corner of his eyes. Is that blood? The vehicle is brought over to the curb where he puts down the kickstand and pulls his shield from its moorings and places it onto his back. Surely a few gawkers will stop, but Steve seems more concerned about what could be a violent crimescene.

-

A few members of the general populace come over looking towards the motorcycle and more importantly the man on it, muttering amongst themselves a young boy ripping out from his grandfathers hand a comic book clutched against his chest. He doesn't really know why Rogers might be here, but he seems intent on getting his vintage comic signed by the man it was (Admittedly very loosely) based off of. The old man who had been trying to hold onto the boy is probably old enough to at the very least have had the old propaganda comic when it was brand new, a veterans cap placed on his head of white hair.

Meanwhile down the alley there's a small flash of light as a door is opened quickly only to be closed right back again. Someone peaking out from inside to see what the sudden rather small commotion is about. There's definitely something going on, but whoever is behind it doesn't realize who's already on the scene.

-

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Captain America steps so that he's blocking the pathway of the boy's vision toward the blood and takes the sharpie and the comic and gives the child a little nod before giving the signature he's given hundreds of times. The bad news for collectors is that what use to be a relatively rare autograph to get (he really only had a 4 year career and spent almost all of it at war), it is now pretty easy to get one. The price has plummeted simply because Steve Rogers just cannot say no.

He gives a nod to the kid, and once the young one is on his way, he bolts quickly down the alleyway towards that door. Once he arrives outside of it, he leans close and listens in. A hand slowly goes up towards the knob as he leans down, testing to see if it opens for him.

-

The moment the comic is signed the boys face lights up like a bulb, he's too nervous to really say anything. "Come on Buck, we don't want to take too much of cap's time," Buck moving back to his grandfather's side as the hero darts right down the alleyway his curiosity more then peaked. The old gentleman offering a bit of a smile to the running captain.

The nob rattles a bit, the door slowly creaking open just a hair. There isn't much visible on the other side save for what looks to be a blood trail that has been haphazardly wiped up with a rag. The walls made from plain brick, exposed behind what should be drywall, the floor unfinished concrete. The light hanging from the ceiling is less a standard instillation and more a flashlight someone tied to an exposed rafter, the sounds of pained grunts feint and distant in the building.

-

Steve has frankly wasted enough time. There's blood. There's a lot of blood. It's time to move.

Relying on all of his stealth training, Captain America begins to run through the opening while simultaneously attempting to stay as quiet as possible. He's searching for the grunts, pulling his shield up into a defensive manner as he moves. His head is on a swivel as his eyes dart back and forth in an attempt to ensure that he's takes the culprit by surprise and not the other way around.

-

There's a crunch of bone, the splatter of blood on ground and a loud scream that rings out in the dark. Someone hitting the ground hard, fallowed by a heavily accented voice "Come now, don't be like this, you've still got at least eight pints of blood, and another leg left," an inhumanly cruel laugh echoing out through the halls. "At this rate we'll still be at this come sunday," Another crunch ringing out as Rogers comes up on a pair of unsuspecting men in thick winter clothing.

-

Captain America throws himself headlong towards the one who seems to be the aggressor with his shield head out in front of him. Whatever is happening, he needs to put it to a stop right away. Inwardly, he hopes he's gotten to this victim in time.

-

Caught completely off guard Rogers is able to knock one of the men to the ground sending the blood soaked wrench clattering across the ground, and it's holder slipping across the floor thanks to the collection of red liquid across the ground. He lets out a loud "Ooof" as he hits hard, unable to properly react, the gunfire ringing out suddenly from the rest of the small collection of men in the room.

Only a few shots manage to ring out before an oddly familiar voice speaks up from seemingly everywhere at once in the building. "Hold your fire, hold your fire!" The gunshots ending after just a single barrage of wild fire that almost hits the man strapped down to the chair with a bag covering his head. "I will not ask a third time"

-

CLANG CLANG

Bullets ricochet left and right as Steve expertly dodges and uses his shield to parry away bullets meant to harm him. One shot grazes is shoulder, but with his tough epidermis he should be alright. He straightens as the gunfire comes to a close and looks around the room frantically for the victim.

-

The victim looks to be someone with a black bag tied around his head blocking any of his vision. The chair he's been strapped to is an old dentists chair bolted to the ground beside all manner of interesting devices from pliers to gassoline, and needles filled with various glowing liquids, from the tray of teeth, and the blood flowing from his leg, they've already gotten to work fast.

"Rogers, it really is a pleasure," That voice calls out from almost everywhere again calm, and sophisticated. "As much as I want to be angry for your stumbling onto our little investigation, it is such a joy to see a friend from the old days still breathing," Lights suddenly kicking to life in the room just about blinding the hired help. The sounds of a quick struggle ringing out shortly after.

-

Once Captain America has recovered enough from the blinding light, he's moving with his back towards the prisoner, trying to protect him with the shield. Once he gets over towards the man in bonds, he'll try to get him free. He hears the voice and it sounds familiar in some way, but he doesn't respond yet, worried more about the health of the victim.

-

"You know I wonder if Mr.Barnes knows you're alive," A slight pause for laughter, as the lights refocus all on the dentists chair, making it a good deal hotter. The interrogator is helped back to his feet, as a burly man in a balaclava comes out from the same way cap had come from holding tightly onto the arm of a familiar looking child. "Look what I found snooping around." The boy now wearing a rather simple paper mask made from what looks like a box of cereal. The voice from all around lets out an amused laugh when the child is dragged in. "Already moved on then have we?"

-

"Stop it," Captain America responds as he halts, dead in his tracks. "I don't know who you are or what you're doing, but it needs to come to a close this instant. Let the boy go. Let him go, now."

-

"Captain rogers," The voice calls out, in that overtly cruel tone of voice, fallowing it up with a slow tsk tsk tsk. "You heard him men, let the boy go," A number of the armed thugs raising their guns towards the boy, as he's thrown into the middle of the room away from the bound and tied person on the chair. Bolts being pulled back on rifles, the man who was carrying him pointing a pistol to the back of his head.

-

"What do you want?!" Steve exclaims, starting to lose his cool. The boy is let go, but the Star Spangled Avenger cannot help but feel that something is left up this foe's sleeve. He remains defensive, but he reaches out to the boy, trying to pull him in.

-

"What I want is for things to go back to the olden days," The voice starts, a small flashing "Back then everything was so simple, you worked for the party, or you died." The rifles aim between the two, the men standing strong while waiting for orders. "I place a timebomb, you disarm it. I kill your best friend, you take my son from me, give and take, black and white, simple."

-

"Zola," Steve replies as he pulls the boy behind his shield. It's a statement of fact, with neither surprise or anger. It just is. With his own story and now his belief that Bucky is indeed alive, not to mention the disappearance of Red Skull's body, the shock value has dissipated. "So that's what you want? Just a repeat of what we went through years ago…"

-

"Still sharp as a tack," The voice concurs from the shadows, as the men keep their weapons trained now on the three. "I missed that about you Steve, you understand me." A few of the thugs taking their chance to back over towards the door. "I can't say that about many people you realize."

-

Perhaps surprisingly, Steve makes no move to stop the henchmen from getting away. He desperately wants to apprehend them—of course he does. But he's not going to risk the lives of the two victims to do it. So, seemingly, Zola's men look able to get away with this. "So how do we begin, Arnim?"

-

"Right down to business as always Steve" There's a pause as a few more of the men file out of the building. The man strapped to the table trying to say something, but he seems weak from the blood-loss already "I suppose we should begin with the true classics," Another pause as the boy begins to cough rather violently the man strapped to the table doing much the same. "Deciding which person you want to save more,"

-

"Every move you make, you'll force me to make another, Zola." Steve replies; again his blue eyes dart around the room, looking for what might be coming next. Rather than wait it out, his finger touches his belt, sending a homing signal back to SHIELD, signifying an emergency.

-

Another laugh from the rafters, as the boys face begins to turn an odd shade of grey, his coughing getting somewhat worse. "That's what I like about you, every encounter a high octane game of chess, a match of wits," There's a short pause as now there are only a very small number of men left in the building. "Now this one should be rather simple for you, on the tray behind you are a number of needles, each containing just enough for a single dose." From the way his voice sounds it's fairly clear that there's been some editing done to hide his identity even if his accent, and little story have done more then enough to give it away. "One of them is a cure for the retrovirus injected into each of their bodies during my little light show, the others…." Another pause "Well let's just say they aren't."

-

Steve runs over to the tray and begins to inspect the different needles frantically. How many are there? What do they look like? What sort of decision will he need to make here? Forgoing his conversation with Zola, Cap calls into SHIELD—hopefully to get someone who might be better with this sort of thing as he inspects it. "HQ this is Rogers, I need someone with a background in medicine right away." He looks over towards the boy and the man, worrying that he is only prolonging the inevitable.

-

Of all of the multicolored syringes each is labeled with the word antidote, in a different language, a few of them standing out as being in English, German, French, Italian and Romansh. There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to them, but the boy falls down to the ground growing weaker by the moment. "You know, for a time I had thought our little games over Roger," He lets out a long mournful sigh. "I tried to clone you, somehow bring you back even just for a day, to relive those glory days, fighting you always made me feel like I was back home."

-

Zola is Swiss; but is he German speaking or French speaking originally? Frankly, Steve isn't quite sure, but he believes that Zola is hinting at it and so he's going to go for it. Taking an educated guess, he chooses German and goes to stick the kid with the syringe. SHIELD is being slow and time is not something he has.

-

The needles contents go right into the boys arm, the glowing red liquid draining away. Almost instantly he begins to regain color in his face, though continues to cough. From above Zola lets out a long sigh speaking in German "Montagswetter wird nicht wochenalt, herr captain." The man in the chair's coughing growing only worse without any sort of injection. "It is good to know you still care,"

-

"What's in the others?!" Captain America yells, finally showing some real emotion as he can feel the other victim's time running out. "How do I save him, Zola!?"

*Captain Rogers, this is SHIELD Command, a team will be to you in ten minutes* The voice comes across the radio, but does so too late.

-

"There is one very fast way to find out Herr captain," Zola speaking up once more, as the mans condition worsens the color fading completely from his exposed skin. It's obvious that this man won't last the ten minutes for shield to arrive on the scene, but he's coughing to much to try and tell Rogers much of anything. "Of course, if I let you save both what need would you have for revenge?" A light laugh from the Swiss man. "To quote myself: Revenge is good. As good a fire to move forward as any. Remember those who stood on your fingers as you climbed the craggy cliffs. Remember their faces. Remember their families." The voice stalling even further as Rogers looks over the pile of needles, and syringes.

-

Sometimes you just gotta throw the deep ball. The other native languages of the most sparsely populated country in Europe are Romanche, French, and Italian. There's not enough in any of them if you believe what Zola says. But would there be enough in all three combined? Cap uses the three syringes in those languages in tandem, hoping that works.

-

One after another the contents of the syringe are injected into the arm of this person, none of them seeming to do much on their own, however suddenly something strange happens. The person strapped to the dentists chair begins to scream, and glow with a vibrant yellow light as they lift up into the air ripping from the bonds as skin begins to peel a sudden explosion of light knocking out all of the power for the building and sending all of the remaining henchmen careening back to the ground.

-

A sinking feeling erupts in Steve's gut almost immediately. He tried, but it looks like this is not really going to work out as he'd hoped. He leans down, bringing the shield up and over the child, trying to protect him as man begins to explode and knock the power out of the building.

-

Far off wherever Zola is currently he can't help but let a smile crack across his face. The rows and rows of monitors reflecting the images across his face, as they go completely black. He steeples his fingers together reaching down towards a button on the controls before him. "Get me crossbones, we've need of a pickup."

As the flash of light vanishes standing where the chair, floor, and most of the room was is instead a masculine looking figure, with glowing yellow skin, in many ways a sort of floating glowing yellow ken doll. It's shape seems to fluctuate somewhat as it floats there, where once were henchmen now only burnt outlines like shadows of people clutching at their eyes.

-

Steve looks horrified, and feels like he should investigate. But rather than go for the floating, glowing man, he stays where he is until SHIELD arrives on the scene. He knows he needs to find out about what has happened, but the first order of business is to find this kid's grandfather.

-

The floating man waits around for a few moments before the sounds of shield starting to arrive on the scene drives it to fly off into the air, afraid and confused. It's path is lopsided, and erratic as if it doesn't quite know what it's doing itself, but it knows that it can't stay, that it's afraid.

The boy has managed to lose consciousness but otherwise looks perfectly healthy once more. His grandfather not exactly hard to find for all of his moving around and yelling for the boy. A panicked look on his face as he tries to describe the boy to a somewhat concerned looking police officer. "Please, I don't know what I'd do if Buck got hurt, he's the last thing I have left of his mother."

-

"I'm glad he's alright," Steve says to the grandfather with a pat on the back for the young one. His lips say the words but it's not in his eyes==clearly he's still upset at what happened to the other man, and those that were killed.


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