Chapter Text
The dead were walking.
No, the dead weren't walking. They were running, lurching madly forward, faces blank as they threw themselves into the fray beside Hydra's foot soldiers.
"What the f—" came over the comms, profanity sharply snapped off as the agent caught herself.
"We knew he had one." Agent Romanov's voice was crisp and clean and utterly calm. "This isn't the first time Hydra's used the dead."
Steve clenched his teeth as he turned towards the new threat. He hated facing the dead. Not because they were dangerous, although they were that. He hated facing them because they used to be people. Each body had once been someone, had once been a person, and Shield had no choice but to completely destroy them, because it was the only way to stop the dead. That, or killing the necromancer, but even that wouldn't work here, because if Shield's intelligence was right, it wasn't the necromancer controlling these dead. It was something even worse.
Alexander Pierce controlled Hydra, and every scrap of intelligence said he was a bloodthief who'd built his criminal empire on blood and death and a kaleidoscope of stolen power, because that's what bloodthieves did. They stole the power of anyone they could make bleed; make them bleed enough, keep the blood fresh, and the power they could wield was almost limitless. Shield had finally run Pierce to ground, here in Hydra's last outpost, and when they took it down, when they took Pierce down, Hydra would be over.
Steve cut down a dead woman wearing a floral dress by chopping through her ankles with an axe—fighting the dead didn't lend itself to modern weapons—and threw himself backwards, kicking several more dead towards the agents with over-sized stakes, who were driving them through the dead, pinning them to the ground, and drew his gun to shoot a living Hydra foot soldier. He shot to wound, to disable, because killing them meant they'd just get up and keep fighting, and moved forward until he reached Agent Romanov. "Pierce."
"Yes." They hadn't been on the same team for long, but he knew her thoughts echoed his. They needed to stop Pierce. It was the only way to end this.
"You know where he is?"
"Yes."
"Then let's go get him." There was a shadow of doubt in her eyes and he knew she was letting him see it. He answered it with, "Of all of us, I'm the only one who's got nothing he can steal."
She processed that quick as thought, accepted it, and she was running, swift and lithe, dodging through the chaos. He took off after her, a draft horse chasing a thoroughbred, but he managed something approaching her grace as they slid through the fighting.
They were silent as they moved deeper into the base, Agent Romanov's magic muffling their approach, as they took out the few guards who'd remained inside, making their way through the twisty hallways until they reached Pierce.
They found him in what could have passed for an expensive office in any inner-city skyscraper, and he wasn't what Steve had expected. Pierce had been the bogeyman lurking behind Hydra since Shield had become aware of it, shadows and rumours painting him larger than life, but dressed in a well-cut suit, the picture of calm as his eyes landed on them, he looked like a politician. The only things ruining the illusion were a slight wrinkling around his eyes—and the blood soaking his arms to the elbows and dripping off his hands.
"Shield?" he asked, raising one eyebrow in casual enquiry.
They were both in their uniforms, Shield insignia clearly visible, so it wasn't really a question. Steve answered anyway. "Yes. Alexander Pierce? Head of Hydra?"
Pierce smiled, seemingly genuinely amused. "Yes. And yes."
Agent Romanov was gathering power, Steve could almost feel it in the air, and knew she'd shield him from any magic Pierce might hurl their way. He drew his gun and pointed it at Pierce's chest, wanting to keep Pierce's attention completely on him. "Let the power go. You're done. It's over."
Steve might as well not have spoken for all the attention Pierce was paying to him. "Hydras are fascinating creatures. They're almost impossible to kill. If you cut off one head, two more grow in its place. Amazingly resilient." He smiled benevolently. "Do you know the secret to killing a hydra?"
Unease prickled down Steve's spine, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
"The hydra has to kill itself." Blood arced through the air as Pierce's hand darted forward to slam down on the desk. Steve fired, a clean shot through the heart, and Pierce crumpled. An explosion rocked the base as he hit the ground.
"Why do they always have to be dramatic?" Agent Romanov bowed her head, teeth clenched, face pale, a fine tremor visible in her hands.
"Agent Romanov?"
"That wasn't the only bomb. He rigged the place to go off in a chain. I couldn't keep them from detonating, but I'm holding them."
She was holding them…"Fuck." Steve holstered his gun.
She gave him a wan smile.
"What can I do?"
"Know any show tunes?"
"I can hum a mean Oklahoma."
"I'd like to hear that." She twitched. "They'll burn themselves out, I've just got to keep them contained until then." A full body shiver made her close her eyes, her fingernails digging into her palms, and Steve made a decision.
"Hey," he said, stepping closer. "I also do a mean impression of a wall." She opened one eye to glare half-heartedly at him. "Lean on me," he said quietly. "I give you my word, I'll never tell a soul."
She swayed, stubbornly stayed on her feet, but finally, gradually, she tilted forward to lean against him, resting her forehead against his chest. He had no idea what it was costing her to hold explosions until they burned themselves out, and he knew she'd never admit it, even if she was on the verge of death, but the fact that she was leaning on him at all? It gave him a pretty good idea.
He stood solid and stoic, not touching her, and after what felt like hours, but Steve figured was more like ten minutes, she let out a shaky breath and went limp. It was automatic to put an arm around her, afraid she was going to puddle down onto the floor. She barely reacted beyond saying, "You do make a good wall."
"Anytime."
Pierce was dead, Hydra was broken. Shield found a whole level of people he'd kept captive as sources of various powers; they were going to be a long time recovering, but Shield had that covered.
The one thing Shield didn't find was a necromancer. There were bodies everywhere, too many that couldn't be identified, and it was the next thing to impossible to work out which had been walking around before Pierce died and which hadn't. In the end, whoever the necromancer had been, they decided he must have died in the fighting and closed the file.