Hello
Author’s note: Y/DOB- Your Date of Birth
Some say that the downfall of man is hubris. Lab Rat disagrees. She thinks that it’s curiosity. Curiosity led to Father’s experiments, poking and prodding as she grew up, recreating the serum and studying the effects on the subject growing up with the serum. If the program proved successful could create a whole generation of super soldiers, correcting the sterilization of the original. The disgraced doctor was successful but soon ran low on funds. At age five, Lab Rat read her own name, Y/n L/N and Y/DOB on a series of government papers. Desperate for funds, he sold her to the Power Broker.
Now she sits in the lab of Dr. Nagel, the Power Broker’s official researcher. The Doctor claims his serum is the perfect one, more subtle. Lab Rat disagrees, but keeps her thoughts to herself. Speaking out of turn resulted in a loss of food, as did asking questions. A lot of actions lead to food being taken away: escaping restraints, reading, not cooperating. Dr. Nagel preferred to keep the experiment in a constant sway between hunger and exhaustion. Less problems to deal with as she’s quiet when unconscious.
Y/n struggles to lift her head up and sip from the bottle. With hands shaking she laps up the water trying not to spill it on herself. The calendar across the room reads Y/DOB. Her eyes adjust to the light.
“I’m coming home baby, now” Dr. Nagel sings to himself.
Her stomach rumbles loudly.
“Food.” Lab Rat grunts rubbing her eyes.
“Do Do Do.” Dr. Nagel scats not paying attention to Lab Rat.
“Food!” She repeats louder, taking a risk, if he’s to kill her it would be prefered more than this continued treatment.
Dr. Nagel ignores her screams. Lab Rat lays down waiting for the familiar feeling of her eyes being heavy and the room beginning to spin. She sees three men enter the room and looks wide eyed at them. Lab Rat sits up and pushes herself to the corner. The restraints pull against her arms, pinning her in place.
“Dr. Nagel?”
“Who are you?What do you want?”
“We know you created the serum.”
“Get out of my lab!”
As two men question the doctor, a third stays behind with Lab Rat.
She’s shaking bracing herself for any harm to come. Sometimes others would visit the lab, and they weren’t the nicest.
“Liebling, are you hurt?” The man in a fur coat kneels down beside her.
“No..food.”
“We should get these restraints off you, first then food.”
Lab Rat looks at her hands then shakily bends the restraints off the wall and breaks the wrist shackles off, then her feet.
“Very strong, Libeling.” The man rummages in his coat and pulls out a candy. “ This is all I have right now.”
Lab Rat looks questioningly at the man before unwrapping the sweet and popping it into her mouth, the powdered sugar covering her lips. Zemo offers Y/n his arm and steadies the shakily legged woman as the two join Sam and Bucky.
“Not to interrupt but I found someone.” Zemo gestures towards Y/n.
His hand leaves her and she nearly falls.
“You know who this is right, This is Baron Zemo. I know you’ve heard of him, too, right? You seem like a pretty smart guy. So you better become conversational real quick.”
“How about a counter proposal? Make me a better offer and I’ll talk.
“Guys we have company.”
Bucky takes his gun and shoots near the Doctor’s head.
“Okay. Okay. I was brought into HYDRA’s Winter Soldier program to pick up their work after the five failed test subjects in Siberia. When HYDRA fell, I was recruited by the CIA. They had blood samples from an American test subject with semi-stable traces of serum in his system. After much labor, I was able to isolate the necessary compounds in his blood. I was a god. I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do. But mine was going to be different. No clunky machines or jacked up bodies. Mine was going to be subtle, optimized, perfect.”
“And the woman?” Sam asks.
“Not my serum,but she’s a gift from the Power Broker.”
At the mention of the Power Broker, Lab Rat bristles and stalks towards the Doctor. Zemo gently grabs her shoulder.
“How have we never heard of this?”
“Because… Before I was able to complete my work, I turned to dust. Then when I returned, it was five years later, program had been abandoned, so I came here. The Power Broker was more than happy to fund the recreation of my work.”
“How many vials did you make?
“Twenty. Karli Morgenthau stole those, so… I can only imagine what the Power Broker has planned for that poor girl.”
“Where is Karli now?” Sam asks.
“Not my pig, not my farm.”
The gun fire outside gets louder. Lab Rat shakily grabs at Zemo’s arm.
“Is there any serum in the lab?” Bucky asks then raising his gun again.
“No.”
“Now what.”
“Guys we’re seriously out of time.” Sharon runs in.
Zemo shoots Dr.Nagel in the head.
“No! What did you do!” Sam yells at Zemo.
An explosion sends Sam, Bucky and Sharon on one side of the container. Zemo and the new woman on the other.
Zemo grabs Y/n and runs out clouded by the smoke.
“Anybody see Zemo?” Sam asks running with Bucky and Sharon.
“No but he has a super soldier as a hostage. We gotta find her, she could help us.” Bucky answers.
“I take it Liebling, that you are enhanced.” Zemo looks behind to her following him.
Lab Rat nods catching her breath from the running.
“Once we are safe you can have any food you want.”Zemo offers.
“Food.”
“Yes, food. Follow me.”
“Okay.”
The two of them begin to clear a way for Sam and Bucky. Zemo detonates an explosive while the other woman knocks the men out, she grabs one’s gun and hits him with the butt of it before shooting others.
“She’s definitely a super-soldier. Go, let’s go.” Bucky adds telling Sharon and Sam to go thanks to their clearing the way.
“What is your name?” Lab Rat asks as the two stop by a shipping container.
“Helmut, Zemo.” He takes off his purple mask. “And your’s.”
“Lab Rat, but it’s Y/n. No one has ever called me Y/n though.”
“ Well Y/n, pick a color: yellow, blue or red.”
After some thought Y/n replies “ Blue.”
“Hop in.” Zemo opens the storage container and inside sits a blue vintage car.
Y/n hops in the car and the two ride it out of the unit and round the corner stopping in front of Sam, Bucky, and Sharon.
“Supercharged.”
“You’re going back to jail.”
“Do you want to find Karli or not?”
“He’s right. We need him. And there’s two of us and twenty of them.”
“There is another super soldier, this is Y/n.” Zemo gestures towards her.
“Hello, I’d be willing to help on one condition.” Y/n adds.
“What is it?” Bucky asks.
“You two help me find the Power Broker.”
“Sure.” Bucky agrees.
“What are you going to do once we find him.” Sam asks.
“Kill him.”
“I like your style.” Zemo smiles at her.
“Ambitious.” Sharon notes. “ Anyway that was one hell of a reunion.”
“Come back to the states with us.”
“I told you I can’t. Just get me what you promised me.”
On the plane Y/n sits further from the three men. It’s all starting to hit her that she ran off with strangers. The stranger in fur, Helmut Zemo gave her a candy. Technically he isn’t much of a stranger if she knows his name. The stranger with the metal arm stares at her for too long, and the stranger with short dark hair hasn’t said much to her.
“Eat.” Zemo puts a muffin in front of her and a bottle of mineral water.
“How long were you with Nagel?” Sam asks.
“I don’t remember, a while.” Y/n says, tearing into the muffin. She ravenously eats the muffin.
“And you took the serum.” Sam confirms.
“Not much of a choice.” Y/n shrugs and says through mouthfuls of muffin.