I Wish You Could Be Honest Chapter Six: Leaving is Only For the Faint of Heart

HYDRA didn’t die out when it failed to take down S.H.I.E.L.D. during the time of the Winter Soldier. Now, top enemy agent Y/N L/N has been sent to finish the job by killing Steve Rogers. When she’s captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., she doesn’t know what to expect, but it certainly doesn’t involve Captain America himself trying to win her over.

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Moore leaves soon enough, and you’re alone on the balcony once more. You turn back to the landscape before you, hoping for something to distract you from the relentless surge of thoughts all crawling down your throat, but even the sky and sun can’t ease your mind anymore. The sunset has finished, the colors are gone. All that’s left is the gradual growing dark of night.

Steve comes back about five minutes later. You have to hand it to him, he tries hard to get you talking anymore, but the charm of your previous conversation has been lost. You feel restless, like you’re a junior agent on her first mission instead of the battle-hardened spy that you’re supposed to be. What happened to make you like this? Who stole your courage like a pickpocket snatching a purse?

You know, of course. Moore coming to tell you about the impending break-out attempt should have lifted your spirits, but it’s just sunk you back down into a wealth of shadows. You knew you would be leaving at some point, or you hoped as much, but now that you’re face to face with the truth, you almost don’t know what to do with yourself.

It’s good news, though. It’s meant to be good news. When Steve gives up and walks with you back to your cell, you force your mind to parade through every happy thing awaiting you back at the HYDRA base. Clean clothes that are actually yours and not just borrowed from the S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms. Your best weapons. The friends you’ve made. The promotion that’s awaiting you, or at least the familiar burn of a chastisement. Everything about the organization that’s been your life for the past few years.

Yet, when you shut your eyes, alone in your cell once more, you do not see the faces of your boss, nor your coworkers, or even yourself. You see the blond man sitting before you, how he tilts his head back when he laughs and squints his eyes shut as if he can’t even believe himself for thinking what’s been said is funny, let alone you too. 

This illusion of your mind shrugs his shoulders, tips his bottle forward against yours then draws it back just as quickly for a drink. He does not know you’re going, and he won’t, not ever. You can keep a secret, even if you don’t know how to keep it from yourself.

There’s a security camera in the corner, it is watching you with a relentless stare. You sit up slightly, staring it dead in the eyes. Who’s the agent on the other side, looking back at you? Is it someone you’ve hurt? Is it any one of the other friends you made before you betrayed them all when HYDRA reared its head? Hell, is it Steve? Did he see your furrowed brows and wonder what you were hiding from him?

The red recording light blinks once as if in acknowledgement, then shuts off completely. In the weeks you’ve spent in this cell, that has never happened once, not even when Steve was talking to you outside of the interrogation. It stayed on all along.

You stand slowly, wavering as blood rushes to your legs. Moments later, the door to your cell clicks open, a precise sort of sound like the whir of a machine. Your head jerks towards it, your hands clenched into fists. The lights click on about half a second later, revealing Moore standing in the doorway.

He raises his hands in mock surrender, grinning. “You can calm down, L/N. We’re skipping town, so if you’re attacking anyone, it shouldn’t be me.”

You force your shoulders to relax, but there’s still a churning sort of nerves messing up the rest of you. “What happened to waiting it out? I thought we weren’t leaving for a while. Has something happened?”

Moore shakes his head, casually strolling further in the room so he can pretend to check out the room like a potential buyer on a reality TV show. “That was so you would take it easy, like you should be doing now. If I told you that we were going tonight, you would have reacted accordingly. We can’t have you communicating anything to Captain America or his trusty thugs, even by accident. What, did you want to give him a little goodbye kiss?”

You walk closer to Moore, laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing just enough that he squirms in your grip like a fish out of water. “I’m going to suggest you stop talking and just get me out, or I’m going to tear your arms off.”

Moore laughs nervously, although he does a quick sidestep out of your reach the second he can. He works his shoulder with a free hand, grimacing. “So pleasant, Agent. I can see why you have so many friends.”

At a sharp glance from you, he sighs. “Alright, alright. Let’s go.”

You follow him out of your cell, but you only make it a few steps outside before he stops walking again. 

“Another detour?” You ask. “Why, are the security cameras on a loop or something?”

Moore has the bravery to scoff. “What? No, I know what I’m doing. No one can hear or see us unless they decide to take a trip down to the incarceration block for a fun nighttime activity.”

You give him a pointed look. “Then why are we stopping?”

Moore pulls a stack of key cards out of his pocket, handing half to you. “I’ve ordered some cell rearrangements. Everyone in this hall is a member of HYDRA. If we’re doing one jailbreak, we’re doing them all.”

You nod, grabbing the cards. Moore walks past you to the other end of the hall and begins to unlock another door. You were in the cell on the far left, so you move one door over and swipe a card against the lock. It opens with that same mechanical click, revealing an agent tied to a chair in the dead center of the room.

You recognize her, having seen this very same agent when you first arrived at the S.H.I.E.L.D. cell block. It’s Henrietta Clarke, the woman Steve took you to visit in the hopes of seeing whether you’d rat out anyone in HYDRA if given a chance at freedom. You hadn’t revealed her then, but upon coming face to face with her again, you can’t help but remember Steve’s words. 

He had said that you were the only HYDRA agent who had refused to turn in a fellow agent, contrary to what you had been told in the past. It’s HYDRA principle to never betray your coworkers, yet not one of your captured agents had ever played by that rule. Steve could have been lying, of course, but you’ve memorized his tells like a gambler memorizing the day’s lotto numbers. You know when Steve is lying, and he wasn’t lying then.

You push the thought out of your head. You don’t have time to think about Steve, not now. If you’re captured at this point, no amount of tricks will save you from a true interrogation. You’ve been offered an olive branch, and you need to use it to escape now. If Steve finds out about your attempt to flee, he’ll never offer you the same kindness again.

You reach for the dummy S.H.I.E.L.D. badge on your arm, removing the hidden blade in one crisp movement. As you saw at Clarke’s restraints, though, you can’t force your thoughts from Steve any longer. Moore wasn’t wrong about the date change for the break-out. If you had known that you were leaving tonight, you would have–

Well, what would you have done? Would you have told Steve that you were leaving, would you have hoped for a goodbye? Not a chance. Steve is still your enemy, even if you think you can share drinks with him on a sunny afternoon. There is no future that doesn’t involve the two of you gunning for each other, and no amount of jokes and false pretenses can change that. 

It’s over now, it’s done. This hasn’t been one of the worst lies you’ve told, and if you’re going to be honest with yourself, you might even miss it on late nights when the solitude of a spy’s life gets to you. Maybe you’ll reminisce whenever you see a man who smiles with eyes even half that blue, or when you delude yourself into thinking that you’ll ever be more than a killer. One man thought that you could be more than just yourself, and you’re proving him wrong right now.

You tug through the last of Clarke’s restraints with a savage tug of your blade, and she stands up. You can’t return her relieved smile, just slap another key card into her palm and tell her to start letting people out. You open door after door, and eventually, you meet up with Moore and a dozen or so newly freed agents.

From there, it’s relatively simple. Moore must have been planning this operation with other HYDRA agents for a while, because he’s got everything under lock. You can admit that much, even though you still think the guy’s a greasy asshole who’s far less slick than he thinks.

He manages to get you back your uniform and guns, too, even though your belongings are probably covered in trackers and have to be ditched soon enough. Well, the thought counts. Moore has identified specific corridors that are monitored by dead cameras, and you and your entourage of liberated HYDRA agents dash through the hallways as quickly as you can.

You’re running on adrenaline and the hope that you’ll get out soon, so when Moore starts directing you further into the S.H.I.E.L.D. complex instead of towards the doors leading out, you can’t help but feel frustrated.

You catch up to him, and mutter under your breath as you run. “Excuse my confusion, but I thought we were supposed to be leaving, not staying around even longer. Shouldn’t we be going the other direction?”

Moore smirks. “That’s if we’re going immediately, yes. We still have a shot to finish your mission.”

Something like ice starts to claw its way out of your stomach, freezing around your heart and crawling up your throat to tip your tongue with cold. “What does that mean?”

He chuckles. “Oh, come on. We’ll never get a chance like this again. Steve Rogers is going to come out of that door over there in approximately thirty seconds, and he’ll never be able to take on all of us, not when we have surprise on our side. I bet you twenty he doesn’t even have his shield with him.”

You turn to face him slowly. “We’re killing him now?”

This is too much. You were barely pulling yourself together when you thought you were leaving Steve with nothing, but now? You try to visualize what is about to happen. Steve comes walking out of those doors, coasting on the feeling of being safe for once in his life. He isn’t watching his back. He doesn’t have to, not in his own base.

What will happen when he sees you, out of your cell and surrounded by your own men? Will you watch those sky blue eyes flash with surprise, then grow cold when he realizes that you’ve betrayed him? You are the primary agent here, even though Moore’s been leading this rescue operation for a while. You will be the one expected to take your gun and pull the trigger.

It will be your hands stained with red, then. It will be your bullet piercing Steve’s skull. He will fall dead at your feet, because you never miss and you certainly won’t when he’s so close to you. Will you wait for him to realize the situation before you take the shot, or will you save yourself the torment of watching him understand, and kill him before he knows you’ve turned traitor once again?

All this flashes before your eyes in the space of about half a second. You blink, hard, to clear away the vision of Steve lying dead at your feet, and the linoleum clears itself of blood in about half a second. You have killed many times before, and murdered people far more innocent than Steve. You were ready to assassinate him weeks ago. You can do it again. You have no other choice but to do it again.

But Moore is shaking his head. 

“No, not this time, I’m afraid. We’ll do it eventually, of course, but he’s been so open to you that it’s got me thinking. Why cut off a perfectly good lead if you can keep using it? I’m thinking we take Rogers back with us to base, glean every piece of information we can, then shut him up once and for all. I mean, I’ve been undercover here for a while, and they only let me know so much. I can’t imagine the wealth of knowledge Rogers is sitting on, and if he shares even half of it, we’re golden.”

You let out a slow breath, feeling oddly relieved. “Alright, then. Shoot to wound?”

Moore considers this, then frowns, disagreeing. “Why bother? The noise would only alert people. We surround him, maybe rough him up a bit to get him to surrender, then knock him cold. We’ve got enough people that we can get him out without too much fuss. There’s a vehicle parked right out that door.”

You nod. “You’ve certainly planned this out well.”

It’s a statement of judgment, but Moore just seems pleased by it. “Yes, I have. Gratitude looks good on you.”

You’re not certain that you’re grateful in the slightest, but you don’t have time to unpack that, because the doors at the far end of the hall are opening and Steve Rogers is stepping out into the corridor. As the door shuts behind him, he freezes slightly, noticing that there’s a crowd of people where there should be nothing but empty rooms.

His eyes meet yours, flash to the people around you, then back to you again. He tilts his head back slightly, knowingly. “I suppose there’s no way I can convince you to go back to your cells, then?”

Moore laughs, the sound strangely discordant as it echoes off the half empty walls. “Not a chance. Stand down, Rogers. We’ve got you outnumbered.”

Steve shakes his head once. “Not the way I see it.”

Despite Steve’s bravado, Moore isn’t wrong. Steve may be a supersoldier, but even he can’t take on more than a dozen HYDRA agents that have been spending the last few weeks or even months biding their time for a chance to strike. He puts up a good fight, but there’s nothing he can do.

Eventually, he’s forced to the ground, his hands on his head. Moore rummages around in his pack for a syringe, and you find yourself standing directly in front of Steve, looking down at him.

Steve’s gaze is unwavering, and you feel the need to speak, anything to get this sudden, looming weight off of your chest. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. You knew I was a bad guy all along. It’s not my fault if you wanted to believe something different.”

Steve’s expression doesn’t change for a heartbeat. “I don’t believe it anymore.” He says, and you rear back for just a second as if he’s slapped you.

At the same time, Moore, having located the syringe at last, jams the tip into Steve’s neck and pushes in the plunger, releasing the sedative. Steve’s eyes shut in a matter of seconds, but you swear you can still feel his gaze burning holes into your head.

Moore looks up at you triumphantly. “Well, we did it. Mission accomplished, I’d say.”

You smile back feebly, and you don’t think it’s ever been harder to fake such a simple expression. “Mission accomplished,” you repeat.

This is supposed to be a celebration, a chance for you to finally go home, but you can’t seem to stop one question from replaying in your head, again and again until you think you might go mad:

What have you done?

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