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Screens flicker to life in the room as the blond woman is roused from sleep. She stretches out and drops to the floor for a set of pushups to shake the sleep off of her. The screens meanwhile displayed the news from the past night. The continued cleanup of the Kryptonian invasion continued to dominate headlines. From government agencies across the world harvesting Kryptonian technology to the continued horror stories of the mass loss of life, there was nothing else anyone wanted to speak of. It was possibly the defining moment of human history up to that point, if Stephanie Carter was being honest with herself. 

The Kryptonians had changed everything, but they were defeated. There were other threats that were now moving in the media shadow the invasion had cast over the media landscape. Steph knew The Commander and HYDRA would be moving pieces to to take advantage of being out of the spotlight.

Unfortunately for them, Captain America and the All-Star Squadron were on their tail. At least it was her and the All-Star Squadron for now.

“We want you on the Avengers, Cap,” Maria Hill’s words rattled around in her brain. “After this, Superman will be under scrutiny. We need someone similar to inspire hope. You can do that. Take some time and think about it. It’s an open invitation.”

They wanted her to be a figurehead. Hell, they always wanted her to be a figurehead. That’s the reason they had created her to begin with. She was to be the perfect little soldier on the frontline of the new superpowered wars. She was going to be the new version of her father fighting the Nazis.

Except, as she had come to find out through her conversations with Nick Fury, Steve Rogers was one of the most insubordinate soldiers he’s ever seen. Steve would strike out on his own with the Howling Commandos whenever he saw fit, and no one really ever questioned him because he got results. That’s why she went rogue to expose the HYDRA infiltration of SHIELD. She wasn’t sure if the entirety of the double agents had been caught, but at least she now felt confident SHIELD wasn’t a hive of corruption.

Now Stephanie was her own woman with her own mission. That’s why she hadn’t accepted a membership with The Avengers yet.

She turned the screens off in her quarters and headed to the training room. As the door to the main facility opened, a voice said from beside it, “You’re up earlier than normal.”

“And yet you still someone woke up before me,” Steph responded to Nick Fury, who was sitting outside her quarters. “Do you even sleep?”

“Can’t sleep,” he shook his head. “Too much work to do.”

“You got something for me?” Fury had been searching for clues as to where Pat Dugan, SHIELD scientist and weapons expert, had been taken following his abduction and the killing of Starman. Dugan was a brilliant inventor, and had been working on a battle suit of armor for SHIELD peacekeeping forces. HYDRA no doubt wanted it for themselves.

“Maybe,” he sighed and handed her a folder. As she began to flip through it, he explained, “That new HYDRA asset you ran into when Dugan was taken? He doesn’t seem to be new at all. Seems to have been behind a rash of assassinations during the Soviet era, always against targets that threatened to turn the world back to democracy. He was known as ‘The Winter Soldier’.”

“Can’t be the same guy, can it? He’d have to be over eighty at this point,” Cap commented on the years of the Winter Soldier’s suspected kills.

“Hey, I should be close to that, too,” Fury winked with his remaining eye. “You and I both know fact is stranger than fiction.”

“Still, physically he seemed to be in his thirties at the most,” she shook her head. “Of course I didn’t see his face.”

She remembered that day like it was yesterday. The Soldier was fast, even faster than she was. He moved with the precision only granted through years of intense training. He gunned down Starman, a veteran hero, like he was a boy playing with toys. When he came after Steph, she had felt something she hadn’t in her entire career up to that point: Fear. She was afraid of The Winter Soldier, and he would have killed her if Courtney Whitmore, Dugan’s step daughter, hadn’t taken up Starman’s staff. The girl managed to turn the tide, and Cap managed to survive by the skin of her teeth. 

“Well, whatever the case, it’s a lead,” Fury shrugged. “We’ve been able to come up with nothing regarding HYDRA’s base of operations. If we can find anything in Russia that could lead to them-”

“It’d be worth the time to look,” she nodded. “I’ll assemble the team.”

“Are you gonna take Whitmore?” Fury asked with a raised eyebrow.

Stephanie pondered the question. Courtney was a willing and eager girl looking to learn how to be a hero. But she was inexperience. That could equate to problems.

“I don’t think it’d be a good idea,” she shook her head. “The last thing I need is a teenage superpowered kid setting something off in Russia. Putin’s already a nutjob. I don’t need World War III starting over an unscheduled visit by the All-Star Squadron. But I want her training while we’re gone. Mind taking care of that?”
“And here I thought I was done training blond teenagers how to be a super spy,” he sighed.

“Hey, you signed up for this,” she smiled at him. “I’ll see you when we get back.”

[center]**********[/center]

The Quinjet flew quietly towards its destination with the All-Star Squadron in tow. The four members of the away team, Captain America, Black Widow, the Falcon, and Snake Eyes, sit around the briefing table in the middle of the sophisticated jet, which flew itself through SHIELD’s amazing computer technology.

Steph stood and looked around at her team, “You’ve all been briefed, but I wanted to talk to y’all before we got there. This is a deep cover mission. No use of powers or force in public. Try to stay inconspicuous. Nat is our lead. She knows the country better than the rest of us. Question and Snake Eyes will stay with the jet until we find something solid. Understood?”

The team nodded in unison, “Good. This is our chance. HYDRA let somethings slip and we need to hammer them for it. It’s time they’re on the run. Let’s find ourselves some snakes, Squad.”