Chapter Text
“The target is a rumoured Hydra facility on a rumoured to be abandoned island,” Steve said as he and Bucky suited up.
“That’s a lot of rumours for us to be risking our life on,” Bucky commented.
“We’ve gone on less.”
“Doesn’t mean we should make a habit of it,” Bucky snorted, strapping on what Steve was sure was the sixth gun. With Bucky, Steve knew that there would be at least four more weapons that he didn’t see.
Steve ignored that statement and continued briefing Bucky on the mission.
“Nat and Tony found it was they were going through Pierce’s financial records. He poured a lot of money into it but nowhere does it say for what,” Steve grabbed his shield and strapped it to his back. “For all we know, it could be a Hydra resort.”
“Evil doesn’t sleep, Stevie.”
“But let’s hope they at least go on vacation.”
“After this, you and I need to go on vacation,” Bucky said pulling Steve in for a kiss. Steve went with the motion, even though he was still busy getting ready.
“That sounds great,” Steve said in between the kisses. He pulled back before things got heated and they ended up being delayed an hour.
“Cockblock,” Bucky pouted exaggeratedly.
“Save it for the vacation.”
***
With no clear path on how to get to the facility on the map that Natasha and Tony had found, Steve and Bucky had to hike from the beach that they had been dropped off on. Neither of them minded hiking but were quite bothered by the heat.
Bucky had pointed out that it was better than the cold, but it was five hours in and Steve was sure he’d prefer the cold. At least with the cold, he could do something about it. In the hot South American jungle, there were no fans or pools to cool off in.
“There’s not a lot of animals,” Bucky noted.
“There’s not a lot of anything,” Steve agreed, feeling as on edge as Bucky felt. “Nat said that it’s only been abandoned a few years, from the intel she got.”
“This makes me wonder why they would abandon a perfectly good island. It’s so obscure on the map that no one would have found it,” Bucky said thoughtfully as he chopped away the foliage in front of them. Steve followed behind but kept an eye out for any movement behind them. “They could have used this island to restart Hydra.”
“Maybe something went wrong and they had to leave or maybe they died,” Steve speculated. “Hydra loves playing around with things that they shouldn’t.”
“I hope they died,” Bucky said.
“Me too, but we won’t know until we get there,” Steve replied.
The rest of the walk was filled with other speculations of what they might find or what happened to the Hydra henchmen on the island. Steve’s money was that they didn’t know about the island's bad weather and had all drowned or died during a bad storm. Bucky’s money was that nature had gotten a bit too wild and killed enough of them that they had to leave. Either idea was practical, but oh so wrong .
The facility stood out against the foliage like a sore thumb. Even with mother nature’s efforts to reclaim its land, the black and grey build was still standing strong. Most likely built to withstand her attempts.
The facility, which turned out to be a lab, was a one-story building with very high ceilings and huge doors. Whether done through time or nature, the front doors were broken and held evidence that someone or something had been walking in and out recently. Bucky said it was an animal, judging by how a person would rather unlock the door than shimmy through the broken glass.
The lab itself was divided into many smaller labs, with a main lab in the centre. After checking the smaller labs, which held nothing but test tubes and chemicals, Bucky and Steve went to the main lab.
“Jackpot,” Bucky said when he spotted the files and computers.
“There’s no power, Buck,” Steve reminded him, heading toward one side of the lab. There were animal faeces, dust, leaves, and papers littered all about the room, giving it the feeling of the outside coming in.
“I don’t need the whole computer Stevie, just the hard drive, “ Buck said, pulling out a laptop from his bag. Steve had forgotten that Bucky had been taught by Hydra about electronics and computers. Though they were from the same time, Bucky was infinitely better with technology than Steve was. And while it sometimes came in handy, Steve always wondered if it was worth it.
“I’ll look through these papers then,” Steve said, putting his gun away and picking up a random file. Weather and time had made the cover and first few pages unreadable but the rest of the file was spared.
“You find anything to indicate what they were experimenting with?” Bucky shouted after a while. The way it echoed around the room left Steve looking around, wary that he was being watched.
“Nothing I can understand. Not only is the science too advanced, but they also seem to have some sort of code,” Steve answered. “Listen to this, Not only do subjects behave well socially, but they also possess the necessary skills to stay alive in the wild .”
“Do you think they’re talking about kids or something?”
“Doesn’t sound like it Buck,” Steve shook his head, pulling out another file. “How would Hydra be able to look after one hundred and sixty three kids all at once?”
“One hundred and sixty three?” Bucky’s head popped up from behind another desk that held a computer that looked older than both of them. It was possibly a personal computer.
“There are numbers here and more writing,” Steve said before reading more of the information from the papers in front of him, “ Mysteriously, some of the subjects have begun dying. I recommend referring back to the genetic code to find the problem, should that not work, then the environment should be looked at .”
“I wish Hydra would leave the genetic testing alone,” Bucky muttered but Steve heard him. He agreed with his friend, life was better when Hydra wasn’t busy conducting experiments on unfortunate individuals. Give him advanced weaponry over human experiments any day.
Before Steve could continue with the reading of the papers, he heard something. Judging by the reaction of Bucky, the other man had heard it too. Steve pulled out his gun and began walking towards the source of the noise, mirrored by Bucky.
It was a slow process, considering the size of the room and how far away Steve and Bucky were from the source, but soon they were standing in front of a metal door. The word Hatchery was printed on the door with big, bold, but fading, letters.
Steve indicated to Bucky that he was going to open the door on the count of three. Bucky nodded and held his gun a little tighter, ready.
One…Two…Three!
Steve pushed open the door and the two of them rushed into the room, ready to shoot. But there was nothing there. Nothing that they could see, even with enhanced vision.
The hatchery had clearly seen better days, Steve thought as he looked around the room, gun still in his hand. The walls, which looked to have been white, were now brown and covered in vines and other splotches of questionable substances. Steve had a sneaking suspicion that the swipe on one of the walls was blood, but he didn’t want to think about that, lest he wonder what happened to the body.
“Doesn’t look like they kept children here,” Bucky commented, sifting through a pile of what looked to be straw.
“Unless the children were born from eggs,” Steve said, thinking about the word on the door. There were six little ‘nests’ around the room, all against two opposing walls. In the centre of the room was a bigger looking nest, except without the incubation cover that the others had.
Aside from the seven nests, and a broken window in the top corner of one of the walls, there was nothing else in the room.
“Let’s go back to the lab,” Bucky suggested, but Steve could tell that his mind was still on what drew them to the hatchery in the first place.
Steve nodded in agreement before hearing the noise again. This time, he could make out exactly what it was. It sounded like a chirp from a baby bird, except the voice was too loud to be from something that small.
Bucky indicated with his gun that it was coming from underneath one of the incubators and together they stepped towards the sound. Steve felt a little silly to be going after what could be a larger-than-average baby bird, but knowing what he did about Hydra, it was better safe than sorry.
Before either one of them could bend down and check what was making the noise, the creature jumped out, startling them both.
Well, that was definitely not a baby bird or even a bird.
“Uh Steve, is that what I think it is?”
“I think it’s a dinosaur .”