Rani Barnes, the daughter of Bucky Barnes, was raised in the shadows of Hydra-trained to hunt, obey, and survive. Now 19 and rescued from that life, she's thrown into a quiet existence she doesn't understand, living with a father still grieving the...
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Yelena groaned silently as she looked at the four of them and heard their words. They all have been fed the same lies.
"It's clear we all worked for Valentina in some sort of shadow O.X.E capacity." Yelena said at last, her voice low but resonant in the stillness. The accusation didn't carry venom-just a tired kind of clarity, the words shaped by years of patterns finally falling into place.
She raised her hands slowly, her gun lowering as her fingers opened into empty air. It wasn't surrender in the traditional sense-it was something more calculated, like a temporary pause in a chess match that had stretched too far into the night. Her gaze swept over them: Rani's sharp stance, gun still levelled with purpose; Walker's twitching jaw and impatient hands; Ghost's rigid silhouette, one foot already half-turned toward the shadows.
They were a triangle of distrust, weapons primed, all with different targets and different motives-and yet the thread running between them was too familiar to be coincidence.
Each of them had played a part in a hidden war orchestrated behind redacted files and secretive voices. And now, here they were, together-guns drawn, stories entangled-staring across a room that had closed in on itself. And in the middle of it all, Bob, bare-footed and blinking, like some strange witness from a softer world.
Yelena's tone held no fear. Just exhaustion. The kind that came after years of hunting shadows, only to realize one of them was always in the mirror.
She waited, hands still raised, to see who else would lower their weapon-or raise a truth.
Rani stood still, her body unmoving but her mind racing, the weight of realization hitting her like a tidal wave. The vault wasn't just a location-it was a graveyard. A coffin wrapped in concrete and secrets, with them sealed inside. Valentina hadn't just sent them to kill.
She had sent them to die.
One by one, the puzzle pieces fell into place in her mind-every mission, every coded order, every vague promise of payment and protection. The pattern was clear now. They had all been manipulated, pointed at each other like loaded weapons, under the illusion of purpose. The illusion of duty.
