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The Fall of The Bird (Avengers Fanfic Prologue)

A/N: Hello! I am a new writer, so if there are things/mistakes anyone notices please kindly let me know.  I’ve had the Idea for this character and this story for a long time, and I’m finally coming around to bringing her story to life. I’m posting this first, and then I will make another post that has more information about the character herself and who her face claim is. I really hope people enjoy this and follow along with her story and come to love the character as much as I do! 

             -Bird   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Wordcount: 4.1k

                           Grand Est, France                            2011

Birds perched on a tree, sitting close together to try and absorb each other's warmth. The snow covering their feathers like a second skin. And a few hundred yards in front of them, was a small building. But little did the small birds know what happened inside of the seemingly abandoned area. It was tiny, the size of a small family home, and completely concrete and grey. It almost looked like it was supposed to be a doomsday bunker. 

The birds were confused, there hadn't been anyone to the bunker for as long as they had been there. But recently, about a few months ago, a few Jeep’s pulled in, and men in black uniforms filed out of the vehicles. They carried equipment inside. Provisions, weapons, and a strange machine. 

Of course, the birds would have no idea the machine would be. But I can tell you what the machine looked like. The first two pieces looked the same. Two poles, thick in width -maybe about 12 inches-  and tall in height, thought that looked like it could be adjusted. At one end of each pole seemed to be a small platform that could enable them to stand upright, and on the other end seemed to be metal boxes, possibly to store the wires for whatever the machine was. 

They only carried in two other things that seemed to be related to the machine, though those were in cases that took two men to carry each. So the little birds couldn’t see what they were. 

The birds enjoyed watching the men. They always had men standing around the outside of the building, holding large guns, and scanning the perimeter expertly. There was no way of telling what was happening inside, no windows were on the building, but they had transported a copious amount of computers to the building. So they can’t just be there for a vacation. 

Every few days men would pile into the Jeeps quickly, like they were being sent out on a mission. But they never seemed to be triumphant when they came back. Whatever they had been after each time must have gotten away. 

By now it had just hit the three month mark, and the sun was starting to set. The beautiful colors falling over the somewhat untouched French forest. It was peaceful, and serene. 

But the peacefulness was interrupted when their Jeep’s pulled in through the snow once again, the now familiar logo of some type of red skull with tentacles gleaming in the light. 

This time was different than the last times the Jeep’s had pulled in though. They were going faster, with a purpose. 

When they stopped, not a millisecond was spared before all doors on both Jeeps were flung open, and the soldiers poured out, though they returned with less men than they had left with yet again. 

The guard who had exited the drivers side of the Jeep’s closest to the building had his lips curled into a smirk. He relished in the sounds of the grunting and struggling coming from the other Jeep. His smirk only grew when the person the noises belonged to, was led around to his side of the Jeep. 

Her hands were bound behind her back, her snarl only became more intense than it had previously been when her eyes met the guard’s. He stepped closer, his steps confident but lazy, as well as how he was holding his rifle. 

“We finally caged the little bird,” Said the man, an air of victory around the young man as he stepped closer to the girl, who seemed to be a couple years younger. He lowered his eyes to her level, the guard holding her being sure to keep a tight grip on her arms. “Guess you were wrong, we did get you.” He mocked, his head tilting. 

His blue eyes seemed to gleam, while the girl’s one green and one blue ones might as well have been red with anger and annoyance. It only took a second. The girl reeled her head back before connecting her forehead with his nose. Enough force being given to make him yell and stumble back. His left hand left the underside of the barrel of his gun, and instead flew up to cup his bleeding nose. His head tilted back and his eyes shut tightly. 

The other guards all flinch, raising their guns to the girl, but she seemed to have no intention to move. She let out a huff through her nose and straightened her back, keeping her shoulders back. Her scowl never left though. 

The man brought his hand away from his nose and looked down to his glove clad hand, now soaked with blood that still dripped from his crooked nose. “You little bitch-“ He seethed, but didn’t continue the sentence any further before he was dropping his gun, the strap around his chest letting it fall to his side. 

He stepped toward the girl, this time his paces held no air of confidence, nor victory. Just hatred. His hand went to her shoulder, shoving her front half down to connect with his risen knee. The guard that had been holding the girl quickly let go. The impact of his leg sent her into the Jeep. Her head hit it with a harsh thud before her legs gave out and she slid down. 

Her nose was bleeding like his, but not broken. She had her eyes shut tightly as she let her body lean to the left and tipped her head forward to spit out the blood from her busted lip and bitten tongue. 

She took a few labored breaths, but they just sounded more like grunts as she leaned back against the vehicle. Her eyes opened to look up to the man, he still had no victorious smile, just heaving breaths and flared nostrils that hurt his face. 

The girl rose a brow at him, a few stray dark hairs falling from their ponytail. “You still hit like a little bitch, Harvey.” She mumbled hoarsely with a small lopsided smirk, but there was nothing but honesty behind her words. 

The guard -Harvey- growled. “Get her up!” He barked to the guard next to him, who wasted no time in lifting her up by her arms. She grunted, her head dipping down as she tried to make the ground seem like it was spinning. 

Before she knew it another blow was being sent to her gut, but she was able to tell it was by a fist. A wheeze  escaped her as she doubled over, probably only still on her feet because of the person holding her. 

Suddenly a voice cut through the air, it was high pitched- young. “Stop hurting her!” The girl's head snapped up, meeting the familiar eyes of the little boy being held by another Hydra guard. He must have only just been led around to this side of the cars. 

Harvey’s grin returned, showing his bloodstained teeth. “Oh, stop hurting your little friend?” He asked tauntingly. The young boy's terrified eyes stayed wide, but he said nothing. Harvey laughed, and moved his hand toward the girls, grabbing her ponytail and yanking her head back harshly so she was standing straight. 

Her teeth bared into a snarl, huffing breaths through her grinding teeth while looking at Harvey. But his eyes were fixed on the little boy’s. “She’s the reason you’re in this whole mess anyways kid,” Harvey turned his eyes to her, and took a moment to appreciate her utterly pissed off expression. “If it weren’t for her, you would have had a painless and easy death months ago.” He turned his head back to the child. “But now you’re in this shit.”

One of the men from the side finally spoke up. “Boss, they want her inside.” Harvey let out an exasperated breath. “Fine.” He snarled, releasing the girl’s dark hair. “Get them in.” 

The squadron all nodded and moved towards the door. The girl seemed too tired to be able to fight back as she was led, but the boy only went kicking and screaming. 

Harvey stayed back, watching as his team took the two to the door. His head snapped towards the tree line of the forest hearing a sound. 

The two birds nuzzled close together, perched on their branch in front of the bunker. The snow covering them like it was a second skin, but that was okay. They nuzzled closer together, observing the forest in front of them. The bullet came fast, shot with pinpoint accuracy to get both birds in the neck. 

They fell off of the perch. Into the snowy ground below them, the flakes clinging to them like a second skin. And there was no warmth from them anymore. Only the warmth of their blood soaking the cold snow under them. Staining the once pure white with red. 

Harvey only tilted his chin back as he holstered his hand gun, and made his way inside the building. 

<><>

Inside of the bunker was just as bland as the outside, except now there were bright white lights from the ceiling flashing onto The girl’s pale and sweaty skin. 

The boy had stopped struggling, his yelling now reduced to scared whimpering. He looked over his shoulder to the girl, who attempted to send him a reassuring smile, but with the swelling in her lip and ache that felt like it was consuming her entire body, it came out as more of a grimace. 

She only seemed to be able to regain full control of her muscles when they started moving the boy to a different room, and continued taking her down the hall. 

“Hey!” She snapped, trying to pull from the man’s hands. “Stop! Where are you taking him!? Stop- let me go!” She growled. “Asshat, if you don’t let me the hell go I’ll break something a lot worse than your nose!” She yelled, her words now directed at the man restraining her. 

She couldn’t do it, the boy yelled for her. Pleaded to her. Begged her, to help him. But she couldn’t. She clenched her jaw and tried one more time to pull away as she watched the door to the room close, but she couldn't. 

I should be able to, She thought angrily. I have enhanced strength for Christ’s sake! She should be able to do this, and she was tearing herself apart for not being able to. 

She had kept herself, and the boy, hidden from Hydra for four months. She was supposed to kill him. But she couldn’t. She had been able to kill everyone else she’d been tasked with. But this time they had tasked her to abduct and execute a nine year old boy, all because of who his father was. And when she wasn’t able to, she killed the rest of her team, took him, and ran. 

She had killed the person she believed she was in love with to keep the boy safe, and now it was going to be for nothing. And in her mind, it was her fault. 

Her bones felt like they were a million pounds. When they had finally gotten her in the fight a few hours ago, Harvey had stuck a needle in her neck, and injected her with something. But it made her groggy, and she wasn’t able to use her abilities. Everything felt slightly blurry. 

One of the guards opened a door at the end of the hall, bringing her out of her guilty thoughts. Her eyes snapped to every inch of the room, scanning anything they could take in. Computers lined one of the walls, on them were maps of the area and cities, and footage from street and shop security cameras. So this is where they’ve been tracking us, she thought. 

That thought seemed to be thrown into a trash bin of unimportance as her eyes landed on the metal table in the middle of the room, leather straps for arms, legs, and for someone’s neck attached to the surface. 

The girl’s eyes widened. “No.” Her eyes peeled themselves front the table when a voice came to her ears. “Subject B24.” His accent was thick German, and she recognized him, only barely, he was one of the doctors at the Hydra base she lived at for most of her life. He lifted his head from the clipboard in his hands, and a smile came onto his lips. “Jay, it’s good to see your face again.” He shook his head. “My apologies, I hear you do not go by that name anymore. What is it you call yourself now? Ah, Raven.” 

Memories suddenly flooded to the girl's mind, making tears gloss her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. 

Jay grunted as she leaned against the wall of the cave. It wasn't an ideal shelter, it was damp inside, and not exactly warm, and small. She had to crouch to walk inside, and it was only big enough for her to sit with her back to the wall and stretch her legs out before her toes touched the other side. 

The boy beside her stayed silent. His eyes wide as he stared down at his shoes. He had just been taken from his home by a small group of strange people and tied to a chair. The girl sitting next to him, only a couple of hours ago had a gun pointed to his temple. 

But she didn’t kill him. She had turned and used the bullets meant for him to kill the group that was with her and get him out. They had been chased when they tried to leave town, and after it all they ended here. 

The boy's eyes looked at the girl as she hissed in pain. She was leaned over her leg, looking at her thigh with a grimace. The boy wanted to ask what was wrong, but he stopped when the girl took a deep breath and started to push her fingers into the flesh of her thigh.

His eyes widened, now realizing her leg was wounded, and she was trying to get something out of it. It didn’t take long, it must not have been that far in there, before she pulled her hand away, a small shiny -blood coated- bullet between her thumb and forefinger. 

She threw the bullet to the other side of the cave and leaned her head back, closing her eyes while letting out a deep sigh. The boy gulped, realizing he could have been the one to get shot. 

They sat in silence for a while. And in that time the girl had torn some of her shirt and tied it just above the bullet wound on her thigh. 

The child didn’t like the silence, so he spoke. “What’s that?” He asked, grabbing the girl’s attention. He pointed to the necklace that rested against her chest when she made a face like she didn’t know what he was talking about. 

Her eye landed on the necklace, and she gently picked it up in her fingers. “A person very close to me made it for me.” She answered quietly. 

“Like a present?” The boy asked, tilting his head to the right, and scooting slightly to look at her. 

The girl let out a small chuckle, though there seemed to be little humor behind it. “Sort of.” 

The boy nodded and looked back down to his dirty sneakers. After a moment another question came to mind. “What’s your name?” He asked. 

The girl thought for a moment. She didn’t actually have a real name, or if she did she didn’t know it. The guards and scientists had always called her by her subject number. There was one name that had been given to her though. Her… lover, had given it to her when they were young, and it had kind of just stuck through the years. 

But everything he believed in was Hydra, and she didn’t know how well she could trust either him, or Hydra anymore. “Jay.” She finally answered. Deciding that that name would be easier for the kid to remember than her numbers. 

“Like… blue jay? Is that why you have the bird necklace?” He asked, pointing again to the pendant in her fingers. 

A sad smile came to the girl’s lips as she nodded to him. “Yeah.”

The boy frowned. “But blue jays are mean.” He said simply, catching the girl across from him off guard slightly. 

“They’re… what?” She asked, letting go of her pendant and leaning forward, her uninjured leg bending to rest her arm on. 

“Blue jays are meanies.” He said flatly. “Me and my grandma watch them through the window. They fight with other birds, and steal their food. They’re mean. But you’re not.” 

The girl’s eyes widened slightly before she chuckled, actually finding something humorous now. “Alright then,” She tilted her head up at him. “What kind of a bird am I?”

The boy thought for a moment, looking at her intently, only making the corner of the girl’s mouth quirk a little more.

The kid smiled when he seemed to get it. “A raven!” The girl raised a brow, wanting him to explain. “They're bigger than a lot of other birds, and you were a lot stronger than those guys from before, and they're not mean, but they attack if someone gets close to their nest.” 

The dark haired girl tilted her head. “How do you know all that?” She asked. 

The boy shrugged, looking down at the ground once more. “My tutor gave me a book about them once, I just remembered it.”

The girl smiled. “Alright.” The boy snapped his head to attention. “Raven it is.” 

He grinned, his little white teeth almost blinding her. He stuck out his hand. “Hi Raven, I’m Ivan.” 

Raven smiled back. “Hi Ivan, it’s nice to meet you.”

Raven was bought from her thoughts by the sound of the doctor’s clipboard being set down. “No answer? That’s alright. We don’t need one to get started.”

Her eyes widened as the doctor nodded to the guard holding her, and he started moving to the table. “Wait! What are you doing? Stop!” She hated begging, but her emotions felt like they were overflowing, and her body felt like it was about to fall apart. And she really, really, hated doctors appointments. 

The guard uncuffed her, and even if she felt like she had enough strength to fight back, they didn’t give her enough time before another guard lifted her onto the table and they got to work on the buckles of the restraints. 

Her chest heaved as she watched what people around her were doing, but her line of sight was cut off as the doctor stood in front of her with a sweet smile that she knew was a lie. He even looked like your typical evil doctor, with the little circle glasses, white lab coat, balled head and wrinkles. 

The doctor started to work on the restraint that would go around her throat. “You are one of Hydra’s best Agent’s Jay. It would be a waste to get rid of that talent just because you’ve lost your loyalty, but lucky for you,” His smile widened. “We have ways of forcing you to remember who your loyalty lies to.” 

When he tried to slip the leather through the metal buckle, Raven lifted her head and spat in his face. He retracted, a disgusted expression on his face as he wiped the saliva off of the lens of his glasses and his cheek. 

Raven glared at him, her chest heaving. “My name’s Raven, asshole.” Soon her head was slammed back onto the table. She groaned and when she opened her eyes she was met by Harvey’s smirk once again. He must have wiped the blood from his face, because most of it was gone now, that didn’t get rid of the ugly crook on the bridge of his nose he now had. 

Harvey held her head down while he buckled the leather strap over her neck. Raven didn’t look at him, she kept her eyes on the ceiling. She grunted had Harvey’s hand grabbed her jaw, forcing her head to turn to him. “I’ll enjoy this, sweetheart.” He smiled, patted her cheek, and stepped away. 

Raven’s eyes widened, her mind started running at the thought of what was about to happen. Though it couldn’t have been much worse from anything else they had done to her in the past. 

“Jay,” She heard the doctor speak. She turned her head to see him opening one of two silver cases set on one of the tables that held some of the many computer monitors. “I’m sure you are aware of the Winter Soldier, no?”  

It all clicked as soon as he motioned for someone stronger to pick up whatever was in the case.

She knew who the Winter Soldier was, and how they kept him in line. Brainwashing. She had seen it happen once, and hated every second of it. She let her eyes linger on one of the headgear pieces only for a moment before looking to the pole that was slightly behind her. There was one on each side of the table. This machine looked different than the one they had used on him. 

“Now, as you can see, we are not in one of our better facilities,” The doctor explained as the men who had grabbed the piece from the case started to attach it to the larger part at the end of the pole. “So we were only able to transport one of our earlier models, but it will still do its job nicely.”

Raven got herself together, replacing her terrified expression with another glare. “So, what? You put my brain in a blender. Make me a zombie like the One Armed Slave, and freeze me for a few years at a time and pull me out whenever you need someone killed?” 

The doctor chuckled. “We have programmed this one a little better than the Asset’s has been. Though I will give them credit, it is good work for such an early time.” He smiled, like this was an amusing conversation between a friend. 

Raven felt her panic start to rise as they began attaching the second piece on the other side. “And Ivan-the kid, what will you do with him?” She demanded. 

This time Harvey spoke up from where he stood with his arms crossed. “We’re finishing the job you couldn’t.” He grinned. 

Raven’s eyes grew. “No, no you can’t do this!” She pulled at the restraints. “He’s just a kid! You can’t do this!” She screamed. 

Harvey took a couple steps closer. “Oh we’ve already started.”

Raven opened her mouth to shout back, but wasn’t able to, because a rubber mouth guard was being shoved between her lips, and the two sides of the machine were being lowered to the height of the table. 

Raven’s lungs and heart felt like they would pop at the rate they were working. Sweat beaded from her hairline and neck -well, from everywhere-, more tears started to build up in her eyes. 

She didn’t want to forget.

 She didn’t want to forget everything that she had gone through. No matter how traumatic or painful, it built who she was. And she didn’t give a damn if it sounded cocky, but she was one of the fucking strongest Hydra had created, and not because she was one of the only who’s enhancement trials had actually worked, but because she had willpower and determination like no one else. 

She didn’t want to forget all the friends she had watched die during experimentations. Or the teammates she had lost during missions. She didn’t want to forget the person she had fallen in love with. She didn’t want to forget any of them, and she especially didn’t want to forget that she had finally found out the people she had been forking for her entire life were on the wrong side. 

But it was too late. The machine was set over her face, the cool metal on the right side covering her cheek and eye, the other side only covering a cheek. 

Her ears were ringing, and the tears had started falling, but not for her. From the next room over, she could hear Ivan scream, before a gunshot ran through the building and the screams were silenced. 

The doctor nodded to everyone else in the room before turning on the machine.

And then the screams were for her own pain. 

<><><>

Other than noises of the machine and Raven’s muffled screams. Til’ one of the the scientists at their computer turned to the others. “We have a chopper coming! About 10 klicks northwest.” 

“Dammit.”