2014
CURRENT AGE: 13

          I casually walked past the exhibits in the Smithsonian Museum, wearing a pair of light blue jeans, sneakers, and a white tee shirt under a navy blue zip up hoodie, with a black cap that could cover my face from security cameras. I was on an undercover assignment, not too different from my usual ones. Eliminate the target and apprehend the package. This time, my target was Edward Davis, a historian for the Smithsonian. Pierce received word that Davis was studying the Nazis' history, specifically HYDRA's. Seems like Pierce didn't want to take any chances.

I pretended to observe the George Washington Exhibit until I spotted my historian, walking through the crowds. He was a rather tall man with dark hair, wearing a grey suit and eyeglasses with a black wayfarer rim. Davis was carrying a small black notebook, the package that I needed to apprehend, containing his research on HYDRA.

I soon followed him, keeping a distance. He seemed to be heading to his office, which was most definitely a restricted area for museum guests. As I followed Davis, I spotted a security guard walking towards my direction. Once we headed towards each other, I took a subtle step to the side and purposefully crashed into him. As we clashed against each other, I smoothly snatched his security badge from his belt and slipped it under my sleeve.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I should've watched where I was going." I pretended to frantically apologize in a fake American accent that made my voice go higher than it really was. I obviously couldn't talk in my regular English accent, the whole point was to not stand out.

"No worries, kid. Just be careful next time." The security guard gave a nod and a small smile.

He doesn't suspect a thing.

"Of course." I smiled. The guard turned around and walked away before I did the same. I continued to follow Davis as I slightly revealed the security badge from my sleeve, only for me to see.

Davis made his way to a less crowded area of the museum where there was a double door with a black card scanner on the wall next to it. I stopped in my path for a moment to keep my distance as I watched him scan his badge on the reader. The sound of the door unlocking clicked before Davis opened one of the double doors to step inside a hallway.

I looked around to make sure no one else was watching. Once I had my chance, I approached the doors and used the security guard's badge to unlock them. I headed inside the empty grey hallway and peaked past the right corner, where I saw Davis opening the door of his office and stepping inside. Passing by three other doors, I made my way to Davis' and looked through the side windows. His office was a bit small, had light brown walls and a brown wooden desk in the middle. Davis had his back facing the door, standing opposite to his desk chair. He seemed to be reviewing some of his research. I took a closer look to see that he was studying the notebook.

I gently turned the handle and creaked the door open as silently as I could. I slipped through the door and shut it behind me, which obviously made a noise, but it didn't matter now. Davis immediately turned around to face me, but before he could react, I spun around and lifted my leg up high to kick him in the face. Davis fell onto his knees from the hit before I stepped forward and grabbed both sides of his head with my hands. I torqued his head to instantly snap his neck as his bones made a large cracking noise. Davis' body fell limp onto the floor with his eyes wide open.

The thing about an undercover assignment at the world's largest museum is that there's not many of options for bringing in weapons. You have to rely on the raw skill of hand-to-hand combat and improvisation.

I stepped over Davis' corpse to grab his notebook off the desk and slip it inside my jacket. I suspected that Davis' body wouldn't be found for the rest of the day, but I still couldn't stay much longer. Peaking out the office door, I made sure no one else was in the hallway before walking out to return to the exhibits. I looked around for the fastest way out until I found one... through the Captain America Exhibit.

Come on, Sarah, it's just a bunch of pictures and words, so grow up.

I took a deep breath in before walking through the many displays of Steve Rogers. It wasn't so bad, just a large amount of "Captain America" this and "Captain America" that. Although, I finally made it to the end of the exhibit, ready to make my escape. But I suddenly stopped in my path when I walked past a screening room as soon as I heard an all too familiar voice.

"That was a difficult winter. A blizzard had trapped half our battalion behind the German line. Steve... Captain Rogers, he fought his way through a HYDRA blockade that had pinned our allies down for months."

Mum. It was Mum.

I stood outside the screening room, beside the open doorway, listening to my mother's interview. I felt a hole form in my stomach as I listened to the voice I'd never thought I'd hear again. I knew I had to go and get out of here, but I felt frozen. My feet were stuck to the ground, I couldn't move, I had to keep listening to Mum's voice, the one I've missed so much.

"He saved over 1,000 men. Including the man who would... who would become my husband, as it turned out. Even after he died, Steve was still changing my life."

I could hear the pain in Mum's voice. I knew she was talking about me, and I knew this was recorded after I was taken, which only made it worse. I could be living a somewhat normal life with her, a life where I wouldn't have to take lives to save one. All I want is to go back home, back to my family.

All I want is my family.

Hearing that the interview ended, I finally pulled myself together again and took a deep inhale through my nose. Not all of us can get what we want. I have a mission to finish, and I'm going to finish it.

I began walking again, but as soon as I reached the doorway I was listening from, I bump into someone as they stepped out of the screening room, except, this time it was an accident. The person dropped a small object from their hand as we crashed into each other.

"Oh! Sorry, sir." I instantly apologized, using the American accent again. I bent down to grab the object from the floor and stood back up.

"No, don't worry about it." They reassured, it was definitely a man's voice. I looked up to see the man I bumped into, and that's when the hole in my stomach grew bigger. I could feel my heart plummeting deep down into the hole, I felt frozen again. The blood drained from my face and my eyes slightly widened.

That's my father.

He obviously noticed that I was surprised to see him when he formed a small smile on his face and held his pointer finger up to his lips. "Don't tell anyone, okay?" He whispered. Clearly, he thought I was starstruck, being a child and seeing a superhero, he's probably had multiple interactions with other kids just like this one.

I finally came back to my senses and built up enough courage to respond. "O- of course." I nodded my head and faked a smile. Being starstruck was probably the best excuse for my obvious reaction. I quickly remembered that I was still holding onto the small object he dropped. "Oh umm... you dropped this." I held it out for him to take, but when I finally looked at what it was, my heart only dropped further down.

It was a compass, opened to reveal a picture of Mum.

"Right. Thank you." He smiled as he took the compass from my hand. I gently nodded my head again and looked off to the side. "You uh... you got a name?" He asked, closing the compass and slipping it into his pocket.

I paused for a moment, trying to think of a fake name, that's the point of "undercover". But I wasn't thinking straight. Although, I felt like telling him the truth, specifically him. It just felt so hard to lie to him, I didn't even know why. I just met the man thirty seconds ago and now I want to, all of a suddenly, poor my heart out and tell him I'm his daughter? I just felt so confused, I was trained to never let emotions get in the way of missions. But this was different, different from the guilt of killing.

"Sarah." I blurted out.

Stupid. Absolutely stupid.

I finally realized how idiotic that was and mentally cursed at myself for telling him who I really was. "Sadie, Emily, Allison..." Any of those would have been perfectly acceptable fake names to use, but instead, I let my emotions take over and went against everything I was trained for.

I noticed he formed a soft smile on his face when I introduced myself. Of course he did, it was his mother's name, for Christ's sake. "I'm Steve. But I think you already know that." He awkwardly gestured his hand to the Captain America Exhibit.

Okay, so he's a dork.

"Yeah." I chuckled out, still screaming on the inside. A short silence formed between us, which he soon broke.

"Well, I don't wanna keep you here too long, your parents are probably looking for you." He nodded with a slight side smile on his face. For some reason, it stung deep when he mentioned the word "parents" to me. Something in me just wants to tell him so bad.

          "Uh, yeah, I'm sure they are." I faked a small smile again.

         "It was nice meeting you, Sarah." He assured and held out his hand for me to shake. There was just something about him saying my name that seemed to phase me. I didn't know if it was guilt, or joy.

         "You too." I softly replied and shook his hand.

          The moment his hand touched mine, I could feel that connection. Like the one when a parent holds their baby for the first time after their born, except this one is sixty-eight years too late. But I could still feel a connection to him that I have never felt, the one I've wanted to feel since I was a little girl. A tiny part of the eight year old girl from 1954 seemed to come out again.

           But once we stopped shaking hands, he walked past me and headed out of the exhibit. That's when reality struck again. He doesn't know who I am. I'm a stranger to him, just another kid seeing a superhero. The connection I felt, he didn't feel the same. The eight year old girl from 1954 was sucked back in and buried to never come out ever again.

          Pierce was right, I will never have the deluded father-daughter relationship that I've always wanted.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER

         I sat on the edge of my bed, playing the trumpet solo from "It's Been a Long, Long Time" by Henry James on my violin. Strucker told me to master this weapon, and I have. Except I don't see it as a weapon, I see it as an escape from them. Playing is what distracts me from reality, it shuts out the world. It's how I cope with everything, including the first encounter I had with my father yesterday.

          Playing is what also helps me control my emotions, because if I have calm emotions, then I have calm powers. Although, I've never used my sonokinesis, like Pierce ordered me to. I've never gained full control of them, which is why I kept avoiding it. It still scared me that just being upset is enough to shake an entire building. Which is definitely not helpful when you can hear the deaths of everyone you meet. For the past two years, all I could hear are the deaths of HYDRA agents. The plus side is that I never meet any innocent civilians that I would hear. The negative side is that the ones I do meet are my targets, and I'm the one causing their deaths.

          Those just the consequences when you cheat death. Not to mention February 22, my birthday and my death date. Every single year, for the past two years, on that date, at exactly 9:07 PM, I have a two minute episode of flashbacks and pain. I see flashes of the grenade incident, and the excruciating ring plays in my head. I feel like I'm being suffocated, like I'm dying... again. And it all lasts for two whole minutes, once a year, for the rest of my life.

I stopped playing and set my violin down to my lap, letting out a heavy breath. I placed it back into its case before grabbing the remote off my nightstand to turn on the TV.

"It has been confirmed that Director Nicholas J. Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. was killed last night." The newsman reported. I raised my eyebrow and dropped my jaw a bit.

Nick Fury was killed? It was definitely hard to believe, but what wasn't was Pierce being responsible for it. Seems like Fury started to catch onto HYDRA's agenda.

"After the events of the Director's murder, two Avengers, Captain Steve Rogers and Agent Natasha Romanoff have recently become fugitives of the law. It is said that Captain Rogers has withheld information on the death of Director Fury. So what does this mean for the future of the Avengers? We'll get into that after the break."

I quickly grabbed the remote and shut off the TV. I couldn't hear anymore about my father, not after what happened in the museum. He'll never be my dad, I'm just a stranger to him.

THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW

A blue pick up truck passed by the New Jersey welcome sign, and in it, were the two most wanted people in Washington, D.C.

"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" The red-headed agent asked, sitting in the passenger seat with her feet relaxed on the dashboard.

"Nazi Germany." The soldier answered. "And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash." Steve bossed, which made Natasha form a small smirk on her face before complying.

"All right, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer. I feel like, if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know." Natasha went on.

"What?" Steve interrupted in an annoyed manner.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" She questioned with a smile on her face, referring to the events of the mall.

"That bad?" Steve raised an eyebrow, still keeping half of his attention on the road.

"I didn't say that." Natasha quickly defended.

"Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying." The soldier assured.

"No, I didn't. I just wondered how much practice you've had." Natasha stuttered out.

"You don't need practice."

"Everybody needs practice." The two Avengers began talking over each other like children.

"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead." Steve finally answered.

"Nobody special, though?" Natasha curiously asked.

The thing was, Steve didn't have anyone special, at least not yet. He's felt a bit of an emptiness, which he assumed was from waking up seventy years into the future. But he just couldn't seem to shake it. Steve felt like he had an obligation, a duty to fulfill, but he didn't know what it was. Yet, when he met that one kid yesterday in the museum, that emptiness seemed to be filled, just for a moment.

For a moment, Steve knew something was off, that he knew he needed to do something. But he still didn't know what it was. He thought it could just be him, deep down inside, wanting a family. But the only person he's ever been romantically involved with was Agent Peggy Carter, and she's already moved on with her life. Steve knew he wasn't ready to settle and build a family, let alone have kids.

He didn't know what the feeling from the museum was. It was probably just the feeling of nostalgia from seeing his old life again, right?

• • •

"So, this Winter Soldier, what else do you know about him?" Steve questioned as he continued driving.

"Not much. But there is someone else. I wouldn't say they're partners, but some say she's done a few missions with him." Natasha replied.

"She?" Steve raised his eyebrow, intrigued by Natasha's answer.

"The Phantom Nightingale." Natasha explained. "No one has seen who she is, the ones who have were killed by her before they could tell anyone. Not a face, not an age, nothing. The most anyone has figured out is that she's female. In the past two years, she has murdered over three hundred people, fourteen of them being assassinations."

Steve has fought a lot of people in the past. But he was still a bit surprised when hearing about this new assassin. He wondered how just one person could be capable of killing over three hundred in two years without getting caught.

"Do we know who they work for?" He asked.

"No. Some don't even think they exist. But others say they are one of the most dangerous assassins that they've ever seen." Natasha described with the tiniest sense of intimidation in her voice. She wasn't exactly scared of the two assassins, especially after serving her own time as one. But after seeing what The Winter Soldier did to Nick Fury, she knew he was only more deadly than what everyone else has said.

          "Nothing we can't handle." Steve reassured. He also wanted justice for the fallen S.H.I.E.L.D. director, and if it meant having to fight two rumored assassins, then so be it.

         "When we find these two, we'll take them down." Steve affirmed.

an // FIRST CHAPTER OF CA: TWS BABYYYYYYYYYY WOOOOOOOOOOO

sarah and steve finally met yay :D and it was the biggest disappointment of sarah's life but they still met yay :D

also i just realized i gave sarah the same outfit as steve when they're undercover at the smithsonian but whatever

KILLERKÖNIGIN | CAPTAIN AMERICA'S DAUGHTER
BY QUEENWANDAMAXIMOFF