Soldier's Pet

Adelaide gasped raggedly as she leaned against the car, her head in her hands. A million horrible memories filled her head, and she couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning too fast. Tony. She had to get to Uncle Tony. She had to tell them what was happening. Oh, heavens above, Vincent! What had they done to him? Was he—? What if—? She couldn’t breathe. Oh, she couldn’t breathe. “Addie!” a voice called. She knew them. Who was that? She knew that voice. “Addie, honey, it’s me. C’mon, doll, it’s Daddy. Come on, sweetheart, look at me.” Oh, it’s Daddy. “Look at me, doll, c’mon.” Gentle hands pulled her hands away from her face, and she was met with the blue-grey of her dad’s eyes. They were full of concern. “Addie, what’s wrong? C’mon, talk to me. What did it say? What was on the letter? I’ve never seen you look so scared.”

“We—we have to get back to the Tower,” she gasped, her voice shaking terribly. “Daddy, we have to. Right now. We have to go.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll go. Do you want to say goodbye?”

“No! We might not have time! We have to go! Now!”

“Alright, kotenok. Okay. Get in the car; we’ll go right now. Just tell your friends where we’re going.” Adelaide typed out a text to Lilly and Killian with shaking hands, but she finally got it sent and shook the entire way back to the Tower. As her dad parked the Impala, she ran into the elevator and shook as she waited for her dad to run in. “FRIDAY, call a meeting. Everyone.”

“Yes, Sgt. Barnes.” By the time they reached the meeting room, everyone was there, looking confused.

“What’s the emergency, Snow Queen?” Tony asked Bucky.

“Ask Addie. She’s the one who’s freaking out.” All eyes went to her. She was shaking so bad that Wanda came over and took her arm, helping her to sit down in one of the chairs.

“What’s going on, myshka?” Pietro asked. Adelaide took several breaths before she started to talk. Even then, her voice shook terribly.

“There was a letter in Vincent’s pocket when they found him.”

“A letter?” Steve asked, looking confused. She nodded.

“It was addressed to me.” Small sounds of surprise were made throughout the room. “I—I opened it at the hospital.”

“What did it say?” Natasha pushed gently. Adelaide started shaking even worse.

“It only had one sentence on it,” she answered, her face draining of all color at the memory. “Vam nravitsya vashe nastoyashcheye, domashneye zhivotnoye delat'?” Natasha, Bucky, Clint Wanda, and Pietro all gasped, their eyes going wide.

“What? What does that mean?” Steve asked.

“It means, ‘Do you like your present, pet?’” Natasha translated.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scott asked.

“Back in Hydra,” Bucky answered, “that was her name. More specifically, ‘Soldier’s Pet.”

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Well, if she’d thought her family over-protective before had been bad, Adelaide was sure that she was about to see it get much worse. Eyes widened, and there were actually sounds that seemed just this side of growling. “They called you a pet?” Clint asked angrily. She nodded.

“I wasn’t important to them other than another way to control Daddy,” she answered, not too upset about that. She’d come to terms with that fact a while ago. “I think, down the road, they wanted me to be the next Winter Soldier, but we never got the chance to find that out, thank goodness.”

“How long were you with them?” Wanda asked. Adelaide looked to her dad for confirmation.

“Six years, technically?” she asked, and Bucky counted off in his head.

“I think that’s right. But if we’re logical about it, it’s more than that, isn’t it?” Adelaide counted on her fingers for a second.

“Yeah, literally, it was twenty-eight years, but it was basically only six.”

“What do you mean, literally?” Scott asked.

“Daddy wasn’t the only one frozen for long periods of time,” she answered. “I was too, sometimes. I’m actually technically in my forties by now.” Yep, that was going to take a moment to sink in.

“So, we have three Capsicles, now?” Tony said, making light of the situation.

“Call me that, I’m resetting FRIDAY’s hard drive,” she warned.

“Fair enough.”

“So, what do we do, now?” Steve asked. “Hydra’s obviously after Addie.”

“We might have the upper hand with that,” Adelaide said. “When we left Hydra, I was still pretending to be deaf and mute, so they don’t know that I can hear what they’re saying and tell others about it. And, I can read lips pretty well, so that’s another plus. And, they don’t know about my extra training. Hopefully, anyway.”

“You pretended to be deaf and mute for six years?” Bruce asked, looking a bit surprised. Adelaide nodded again.

“She’s a very good actress,” Bucky said. “She even had me fooled for a long time. Especially on the speaking part.”

“I could do it again, but all of you would have to start treating me like I can’t talk or hear.” Everyone agreed, and when Adelaide left the room, she was back into her old role, slipping into it with such fluidity that Bucky was slightly worried about her. She smiled at him when she caught him giving her and weird look and shook her head slightly.

Don’t worry, Papa, she said into his head. They definitely don’t know I can do this. We can still talk. He smiled at her and pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head gently.

I love you, kotenok.

I love you too, Daddy. Don’t worry, we’ll stop them. They won’t win this time. We’ll make sure of it.

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From that moment on, Tony couldn’t get Vincent moved to Avengers’ Tower fast enough. He gave Mr. and Mrs. Barkley a room in the Tower near the Infirmary, and the doctors that often took care of the Avengers when they were injured began making sure that there would be no lasting damages and just generally looking after Vincent during his recovery. He hadn’t woken up yet, but that was okay, because his body needed time to heal. Steve, Natasha, Bucky, and T’Challa began looking for any signs of Hydra activity, and Adelaide helped where she could. She was a nervous wreck. Vincent had been attacked—kidnapped—because of her. Why now though? It’d been years since Steve and Natasha had taken down SHIELD and Hydra. Why would they come after her after all this time? She could hardly sleep for worry. Killian had given her the letter she’d dropped, giving her a concerned look as he did. She promised that one day she’d explain what it said, but for now, she just gave it to Bruce to study and see if it would give them a lead as to where Hydra was hiding out. A week after the debatable, Vincent woke up. His parents, Rachel, Lilly, and Killian crowded into his room to see him during the next three days, but Adelaide kept her distance for now, only going to see him when he was asleep. Plus, she’d told her friends and Vincent’s parents everything, from her childhood to Hydra to what was going on now, so they knew everything. Yes, there were some freak-outs, but everyone agreed. For the next indefinite period of time, Adelaide could neither speak nor hear. It was actually shocking how easily she’d slipped into her old role. Everyone had to learn sign-language, though, because there was no other way for her to “communicate” normally to them besides writing everything down, and that took too long. A week after that, with still no news on Hydra, and it seemed like Addie had never been able to talk at all. Adelaide didn’t even use her powers that much, not wanting to give herself any chances of being discovered more easily by Hydra. She did when it was just her and her dad, but that was usually it. Finally, a month after Vincent was found in the train car, a letter was left at the receptions desk of the Tower, addressed to Adelaide. Everyone gathered in the room while she, Bucky, and Natasha read it. “What does it say?” Steve asked after a few minutes.

“They want her to turn herself in,” Natasha said lowly.

“Well, I always knew they were crazy, but this proves how crazy they really are,” Scott said, shaking his head. “As if she’d actually go willingly back to them.”

“There’s more,” Natasha continued. “If she doesn’t go to the designated spot in twenty-four hours, they’ll go after more of her friends. And if she still refuses to go, they’ll start coming after us.”

“They do know that we’re all super heroes, right?” T’Challa asked. “Do they think that we will give her up without a fight?”

“No, they’re counting on it,” Steve said, and Adelaide could practically see the gears turning in his head. “They know that we won’t just let her go, so she’ll either have to sneak out, or we’ll go with her. And we’ll leave her friends unguarded. So, even if she goes to them, they’ll still have leverage.”

“Why don’t we just split up?” Wanda suggested. “Some stay here to guard the others, and everyone else goes with her?”

“No, Hydra’s smarter than that,” Bucky said. “They’ll send so many troops here, that any less than all of us will result in defeat. It’s her, or nothing. They want her back. Badly.” Adelaide put her hand on her father’s arm, and the two had a conversation without speaking, as they often did. Bucky sighed and nodded, and Adelaide stood up and left the room. Several questions were sent Bucky’s way, but Adelaide went down the hallways and up a flight of stairs to a familiar hallway. She stopped at a door and knocked. It opened to reveal tired eyes, but a smile broke out when they saw who it was.

“Addie!” Vincent exclaimed, hugging her tightly. “I’ve missed you! I thought you would never come!” He ushered her into the room Tony had given him in the Tower and sat down on the sofa, letting her sit on the other side. “Look, I know we have a lot of straightening out to do, about everything, but that can wait. Killian told me what’s happening. What are you going to do? About Hydra, that is.” Adelaide started signing at him slowly, so he could read them.

I’m turning myself in. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe. I’m going alone, and I’m going tomorrow.

“Addie, you can’t! You can’t go back there!” Vincent exclaimed, eyes going wide in fright. “You—the things they did, Addie, there aren’t words. I—I can’t let you go back to them. If you thought what they did to your dad is bad, they’re ten times worse now! They’re angry and vengeful, and they want to use you to do it! You can’t go back there!” Adelaide grabbed his hands in hers and made him look at her.

Do you trust me?

“What? Of course I do!”

Trust that I’ll be okay and come back, please? We still have things to talk about. Vincent was clearly upset, but he knew that he couldn’t stop her.

“You may not be his blood daughter, but you are as stubborn as your father sometimes, you know that?” Adelaide smiled and nodded, hugging him tightly.

Thank you. I’ll stop by when I get back, then we can talk for real.

“I’m holding you to that,” Vincent said as she stood to leave. She smiled back at him, walking out the door and going to get a good night’s sleep. She was going to need it in order for her plan to work.