-6-

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September, 1996 (10 Years Old)

HYDRA Facility, Québec.

The Wyvern stood on the facility's launchpad, shivering. She was dressed only in the light jumpsuit she usually wore under her armor – the technicians had wanted her to have maximum maneuverability, though they hadn't considered the island's plunging temperatures. Or they just didn't care.

The launchpad was dimly lit, though the Project Leader had ensured that the island and the ocean for miles around was unoccupied. Pine trees surrounded two thirds of the launchpad, but the other third plunged into a granite cliff over the still ocean.

The Wyvern didn't come outside all that often, except for stealth training in the forest, flight training, and missions.

Technicians scurried around, murmuring to each other in the evening air and preparing the final arrangements of Stage Three. Marino stood on the edge of the launchpad, watching the Wyvern shiver.

The Wyvern knew that not all of the trembling was from the cold, however. She was... excited. She'd labelled the feeling the day before, after hearing a technician say that he was excited for lunch. She thought that was the name of the tingling sensation in her stomach. She knew she ought to tell her handlers, but the feeling would be wiped away soon enough, and she wasn't going against orders. A deeper part of the Wyvern knew that her excitement was wrong for another reason, but she couldn't put a finger on it, and delving into that part of herself made her head throb.

The Wyvern knew that there were parts of the Stage Three designs that she hadn't seen, things that they were keeping from her. But as she watched the technicians open the large, mechanical wings on the tarmac, she found she didn't mind.

The wings had been modeled after paintings of dragons of old, though the flight design was based on bats. Adamantium formed the 'skeleton' of the wings: metal bones running along the tops of the wings, with five fingers or 'phalanges' reaching down. Carbon fibre webbing stretched between the metal bones, a jet-black surface against the gun-metal grey of the Adamantium. Laid out flat on the ground, each wing was as long as an adult human stood tall.

The base of each wing led to a nub of Adamantium with inbuilt mechanical ports – exactly the diameter and depth of the moorings in the Wyvern's back. The smaller jet engines that the Wyvern had designed were installed at the tip of each Adamantium 'finger', and at the base of the wings, closer to where the Wyvern's body would be. Altogether there were fourteen engines. The wings could theoretically fly without jet propulsion, but that would require significant effort on the Wyvern's part, reliance on weather patterns, and would not get her to nearly the same speeds.

The technicians had installed the wings a few times in the lab, usually in small pieces, one at a time, for lots of minute tests to ensure that the cybernetic linkup was working. But she'd never worn both, complete wings at the same time. A tremor ran over the Wyvern's skin as she looked at the wings, stretched open on the ground.

Finally, the Project Leader arrived. The Wyvern knew he liked to arrive last, because he'd often made her stand and wait with him before sweeping into meetings with other HYDRA operatives. His gelled blonde hair didn't budge in the evening breeze.

"How are we looking?" he asked Sanders, who was overseeing the final preparations.

"Ready to begin," she replied, her French accent heavy due to her focus on a clipboard. "Gagnon, Morin, commencez l'installation." ["Begin the installation."]

Two burly techs nodded to Sanders, and knelt by the wings on the ground. Carefully, they folded the Adamantium skeletons in on themselves, so the wings became a fifth of the size, like a folded-up umbrella. The techs gripped the wings by the base and near the top, and lifted them from the ground.

"Turn, Wyvern," Sanders barked.

The Wyvern complied. She kept her hands by her sides and braced her legs, feeling the breeze pluck at the hole cut in the back of her shirt. The crowd of technicians were silent, so the Wyvern could easily hear Gagnon and Morin's footsteps shuffling toward her.

Since she was standing, they had to install both wings at the same time to prevent her from becoming unbalanced. So when Gagnon and Morin finally slotted the base of each wing into the moorings in her spine, the Wyvern suddenly had twice the weight, twice the input, twice the sensation.

She shuddered, closing her eyes as information flooded in from each wing – weight, temperature, wind pressure, the sensation of the techs' hands on the Adamantium bones. She could feel the wings, though they were utterly alien. It was as if she'd grown an extra set of arms. The influx of sensation was painful, a sharp bloom of light behind her eyes. The wings themselves seemed to throb as well, like an exposed nerve, or a toothache.

Gagnon and Morin supported the wings for another moment or two, then stepped away. The Wyvern felt the weight of the Adamantium and carbon fibre settle entirely on her, but the reinforcements to her skeleton allowed her to bear the weight. She shifted her posture, straightening her back so she had a strong weight-bearing line from her shoulders, to her hips, to her feet. She cocked her head, visualizing the shape of the folded wings on her back and feeling their very real presence. They were heavy, but much lighter than she had anticipated. It would take some time to get used to this.

"Wyvern?" said the Project Leader, after a minute of silence. He had moved around the launchpad and was now standing somewhere to her left. She could feel everyone's eyes on her.

The Project Leader had not asked her a question, but the Wyvern felt she ought to give a response.

She braced herself, then unfolded the wings. She'd gone over this dozens of times in simulations, with EEG cords linked to her temples and wires stuffed into her moorings. But it felt different in the open air, with the cybernetic neurons in the wings registering the breeze brushing against the Adamantium bones.

The wings opened slowly, hesitantly, the right one dipping slightly as she lost concentration for a moment. But soon they were stretched to full capacity, the Adamantium skeleton aloft on either side of the Wyvern's body. The technicians could see the muscles in the Wyvern's back bunching and cording around the moorings, all the way up to her shoulders.

With the wings fully outstretched, the Wyvern found it difficult to stand still in the evening breeze. She opened her eyes, blinking at her shadow on the ground. Her body was so small, just a narrow line slotted between the enormous, reaching wings. She rolled her shoulders and saw the shadow of her wings shift in response.

Sanders was speaking: "… large enough to support her even as she grows into full maturity, though she may get slower without further development-"

"Sanders," said the Project Leader. His voice was even, but the Wyvern heard the anger in it. "Shut up."

Silence rang out on the launchpad. To the west, the sun glowed orange on the horizon.

"Wyvern," the Project Leader repeated. "Show us what you can do."

"Sir," Sanders objected, "I don't think the project is-"

But the Wyvern was already sprinting for the edge of the launchpad, drawing the wings in toward her body, and then leapt off the edge of the cliff. Half the techs ran after her, sticking their heads over the edge.

The wind shrieked around the Wyvern, pulling at her thin jumpsuit, at her wings, at her loose hair. But she kept the wings pressed close to her sides, plummeting down the side of the grey cliff. The world was a blur: orange sun, grey cliff and white sea. She wondered if she ought to feel scared. But the Wyvern had never known herself to feel such a thing before, and this did not feel like a moment for fear.

When she saw the white foam flowing around the sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff, she threw her wings open. The wind caught at the stretched carbon fibre, pushing her up from the beach and flinging her into the sky. The Wyvern gasped and tried to process the readings from her wings: the wind flowing over the taught surfaces, the moisture gathered along the tips of the Adamantium from her close call with the ocean.

But it felt all too much, trying to understand each piece separately, so she let it wash over her – if she thought of the wings not as foreign attachments, but as herself, the readings started to make sense. The Wyvern fired up her engines and gasped again as she rocketed skyward. Her eyes watered at the force of the wind, and her hair was ripped out of its tie to stream behind her like a flag. Her arms were pressed against her sides, and her legs flailed a little in the jetstream. Her wings held steady, though, the Adamantium unbowed by the wind.

The Wyvern blinked the tears from her eyes and realized she was about to hit the clouds, so she reduced power to the engines – a hard thing to remember how to do from the simulations at two thousand feet – twisted her body and flew horizontally, her breath catching again in her chest when she saw how high she'd flown.

She could see the whole island from here, a long, isolated mound of granite cliffs and pine trees. The base was well hidden, but she could just make out the dim light from the launchpad. The sun was sinking below the horizon to her left, and the ocean stretched for miles around, painted a deep yellow by the sunset. In the distance she could make out the mainland.

The Wyvern lifted her right wing and cut smoothly through the air to the left, then turned the move into a corkscrew that blurred the sky and the sea. She beat her wings once, twice, bringing her out of the spin and lifting her back up to the clouds.

The Wyvern threw her arms out and closed her eyes, feeling the air slip over the front edges of her wings, over her face, down her body. She felt weightless, despite her technical knowledge that it was the engines and the aerodynamic lift keeping her aloft. This was nothing like the simulations, or even like her flight training. This was…

Her eyes snapped open. This was enjoyable. Feeling uneasy, the Wyvern tilted her wings and circled down to the launchpad. She wasn't meant to feel. Weapons do not feel. The wings were for her handler's missions, nothing more.

Intending to demonstrate the mission readiness of the wings to the Project Leader, the Wyvern plummeted the last six hundred feet, snapping the wings open just in time to pull up her freefall, allowing her to drop lightly to the launchpad. She misjudged it slightly, stumbling a little, but judging by the slack-jawed expressions of the technicians she managed to pull it off. The Wyvern looked like a mess, her dark hair strewn across her face and neck, face flushed, eyes wild. Her wings rose and fell with her heaving breaths.

The Project Leader eyed his project for a long moment. Eventually, he nodded to her, and turned to the technicians. "Well done. Pack it up."

The Wyvern followed her handlers down into the tunnels of the facility, her skin still tingling with the memory of soaring below the clouds.

The Wyvern trained with her wings every day. The Project Leader ordered them removed less and less, until it was standard for her to pace down the facility's corridors with her wings tucked behind her; a black, silent shadow.

The Wyvern flew the skies above the base when the area was clear, getting used to working as one with her new limbs. She worked with her flight teachers again. They gave her stealth tests, trying to catch her before she descended silently onto her chosen target and sank knives into its foam heart. She was given obstacle courses through the dense island forest, forcing her to push her wings to their limits to zip and turn past the obstructions.

They fired crossbow bolts and nets and rockets at her as she flew, most of which she avoided.

The Adamantium was resistant to all the abuse, but on more than one occasion a projectile went through the carbon fibre webbing, sending the Wyvern into a controlled glide to the ground to be yelled at by her instructors. The wings were flight capable with a few holes in them, but the Wyvern was meant to be untouchable.

On one occasion she tried to shield herself from a rocket with her left wing and was knocked into the ocean. She had been instructed on how to keep herself afloat with the wings, and theoretically the adamantium formula that she and Marino had worked on wouldn't cause her to sink like a stone, but with half her chest charred and smoking, that was hard to remember. They fished the burned and half-drowned Wyvern out of the water, told her to lie still for the rest of the night, and put her back to work the next day.

The Wyvern also learned to fight while flying, pulling knives and guns from holsters on her uniform and striking an opponent as she rocketed by. She could alternate from swooping through the air to engaging an opponent in hand-to-hand combat in a moment.

The Wyvern got used to her wings, to the rush of information pouring from their sensors. They began to feel like extra limbs, just extensions of her flesh and metal body. She could sense pain from them – not quite like in her body, but when her instructors put a crossbow bolt through her webbing the jolt to the sensors would make her recoil. When the wings were removed so she could be wiped or trained, she felt unnaturally light, as if she might float away.

She continued to be wiped on a regular basis. Still, each time she flew she got a thrill in the pit of her stomach, despite her attempts to discard the feeling.

The Wyvern and the other technicians continued to modify the wings over the years. After her first flight the Wyvern requested goggles, for better visibility. The Project Leader finally approved a pair of sinister looking half-moon goggles with illuminated red lenses. They didn't distort her vision, and the looks on the technician's faces when she wore them with the wings told the Wyvern why he had chosen that design. With her uniform, a black and gunmetal grey combat suit with a cowl that covered her head and face, she looked like a dark monster, glaring with glowing red eyes.

They decided to use the Adamantium as more than a framework, adding a protruding spine at the tip of each 'finger' of the wings – one at the top of each, and five on the bottom. The spines were wickedly sharp and could cut through anything, and the Wyvern quickly adapted them into her fighting style.

They were always honing, developing, refining. If the Wyvern was ordered to find a way to make the wings faster, she figured it out. If she was told to refine the moorings in her back, she designed a better connectivity system and lay still on the table when they dug tools into her spine.

Sanders had the bright idea of extending the Adamantium down the back of the Wyvern's legs, resulting in extendable 'heel spurs'. Essentially, after a lot of blood and screaming, the Wyvern had long, thin barbs that could extend and retract out of each of her heels. The spurs did prove useful to get a grip on things while airborne, and to cut through objects and people with impunity. When they weren't extended, the Wyvern had a smooth metal plate covering each hole in the bottom of her feet, that would clink against the ground when she walked barefoot.

The Wyvern had become what the Project Leader dreamed of years earlier: a cybernetic weapon, stealthy and lethal, that HYDRA could use without fear of failure.

February, 1999 (12 Years Old)

HYDRA Facility, Québec

"Wyvern."

"Ready to comply."

"Report to the Project Leader's office."

The Wyvern stood, breath still fast from the machine. She turned, allowing two techs to notch her wings into their moorings, and then folded the wings as small as they could go. They had been recently modified to have telescopic limbs, so once the Adamantium had slid together, the folded wings were the size of a backpack. The Wyvern rolled her shoulders, feeling more solid with the weight on her back, and strode out of the room.

It was unusual for her to go to the Project Leader's office. That was where HYDRA's secrets were, and that was none of the Wyvern's business. But she didn't wonder about what she might be going there for. She'd been told to report there, and so she would.

As she walked, she passed a soldier with a curved scar under his left eye. She took note of the look he shot her – unusual, for a regular soldier of the facility. In the fluorescent lights his gaze was… proprietary, almost. A cock of the eyebrow and a small smirk. The Wyvern did not return his gaze, merely noting the oddity and moving on.

When she reached the Project Leader's office a guard by the door let her in, trying to hide how he cringed away from her. That was the response she was used to.

The office was similar to the rest of the base – concrete floors and walls, and a rocky ceiling with fluorescent lighting. The Project Leader's desk was neat, with orderly stacks of files and a boxy computer. The Project Leader himself was neatly dressed as always in a black suit, standing beside a man with greying strawberry-blonde hair in a light grey suit. His suit seemed more expensive than the Project Leader's, but the calm calculation in his blue eyes was eerily familiar. Both men's gazes swivelled to appraise the Wyvern.

"So," said the stranger. His face was lined. "This is where I've been putting all HYDRA's money."

The Project Leader didn't seem pleased by that. "The Wyvern has been immensely successful, Director-"

"I've read the reports, Peters," the Director said, making a quelling gesture with his hands. "That's why I'm here now, to see for myself. I didn't come all the way to Canada for the maple syrup." He turned back to the Wyvern and cocked his head, putting a hand on his jaw. The Wyvern held herself still, unblinking, but not looking at anything in particular. She'd long since gotten used to being observed.

The Director let out a huff of a laugh. "She looks like Howard."

The Project Leader looked even more displeased, but didn't say anything. The Wyvern remained still.

"She's how old again?" the Director asked, looking over his shoulder at the Project Leader.

"Almost thirteen, sir."

"Hm. She's tall."

"The serum continues to interact with her growth, and the Adamantium reinforcement grows along with her."

The Director nodded, then turned back to the Wyvern and clapped his hands together. "Well, Wyvern, let's see what you can do, shall we?"

"Yes, sir."

The Project Leader had designed a series of tests for the Wyvern. First she was taken to the training room, where ten men waited for her. Most of them she hadn't faced before – they must have come with the Director.

The Director and the Project Leader watched the Wyvern take down the men, darting and snapping like a snake. She used her wings only rarely, knocking men aside and putting the deadly spines to their throats. She didn't kill any of them, but the men went away pale-faced and silent.

The Project Leader then gestured to a 400-pound dumbbell, which she lifted over her head with ease. They went to the shooting range, where the Wyvern put knives and bullets through the heads of foam dummies. All the while she could hear the Project Leader reciting her skills, as if from a specification booklet.

It was already night time and they didn't want to draw undue attention to the facility, so the Wyvern wasn't taken above ground to display her flying. But as they entered the facility lab, there were videos cued up of her flying through obstacle courses. The Director's face, as it had been for all the demonstration so far, was impassive. He asked the occasional question, but he was near impossible to read.

The Wyvern was directed toward a computer and given a specific target in China's Ministry of State Security. In ten minutes she had hacked the target's work desktop and presented the Director with a dossier on the man's recent activities. Then the Wyvern was ordered to stand at attention while the Director was shown her various designs and inventions.

At one point the Director asked: "You don't worry you've made the weapon too smart?"

"I don't believe that such a thing could be possible, sir. No matter how smart she is, the memory suppressing machine and the cognitive recalibration ensures that her intelligence is only utilised for HYDRA's purposes."

"Hm."

Finally, the Project Leader appeared to run out of things to show the Director.

Silence fell in the lab as the Director looked over the files and images before him. He glanced up at the Wyvern.

"Sir?" prompted the Project Leader.

The Director nodded, his eyes shrewd. "I'm impressed, Peters, as I'm sure you expected."

The Project Leader relaxed a little, folding his hands in front of him. "Well, sir, the project has enjoyed an inordinate amount of success-"

"But," the Director continued, "all of this…" he gestured at a video of one of the Wyvern's training night flights. "It's practice. I know she's been on missions, but they're intermittent. Small-time stuff. The Wyvern is clearly a devastating weapon, and we need to use it. Stop using her as a sideshow attraction." At this he levelled the Project Leader with a long look, and then turned to the Wyvern. He walked right up to the cybernetically-enhanced twelve year old, evaluating the blank look in her eyes. He put one wrinkled hand on her shoulder, and made sure his next words resonated throughout the room.

"Use her as a weapon."

The Wyvern's training had come to an end. She continued to learn new skills and adapt, but no more specialists were sent to the Québec facility specifically to train HYDRA's weapon. Instead, the facility became the hub of HYDRA's North American and Canadian activities, with the Wyvern running point. But she wasn't restricted to that part of the world – she went wherever HYDRA needed her to, from Alaska to South Africa to Japan.

The Project Leader's vision had been for a weapon that wasn't stowed away at the end of a mission, but instead could be sent on missions of all degrees of difficulty and hold a non-combatant role back at base. The Wyvern became one of HYDRA's most proficient hackers, used to monitor S.H.I.E.L.D and organisations around the world. She designed weapons, machines and programs for HYDRA's interests. And when they weren't using her mind, they sent the winged beast into the world to feed crisis, reap war, and extend HYDRA's dominance over the globe. She stole secrets, assassinated HYDRA's enemies, and was often an ominous shadow behind a HYDRA agent's shoulder, an attack dog on a chain.

She was HYDRA's demon, a curse they could bring down on their enemies.

September, 1999 (13 Years Old)

Khabarovsk, Russian Far East

Natalia giggled as her target looped his arm over her shoulder, and fought not to wrinkle her nose at his overpowering cologne.

You are made of marble, whispered Madame B.'s voice in her mind. She could suffer this over-cologned man with a taste for fifteen year old girls. The trouble was that she wanted to kill him, to put a knife through his smirking mouth, but she wouldn't get to. No matter how elegantly she killed him, it would be seen as a failure.

Deliver the target to the roof and leave. Such mysterious orders, especially for an ungraduated pupil. But Madame B. had seen Natalia's potential years ago and trained her all the harder for it.

"Ya khochu uvidet' zvezdy," ["I want to see the stars,"] she laughed, pulling at the target's arm. He came with her, laughing at his – seemingly drunken – groomed mark.

"Vo chto by to ni stalo, milyy. Dayayte nemnogo pozabotimsya." ["By all means, darling. Let's get some privacy."] He put his hand over hers as they climbed the stairs, and Natalia played up her stumbling. His hand had reached her lower back by the time they spilled out onto the roof.

You are made of marble.

It was dark on the rooftop. Natalia could indeed see the stars, but she only pretended to admire them as the target pulled her out to the edge of the roof. He was crooning about the river, trying to get her to look out at it – no doubt so he could start assaulting her in earnest.

Instead, she slipped a hand into her coat jacket, whipped out the vial of sedative and jammed it into the target's reeking neck.

"Na samom dele, mne ne nravyatsya zvezdy," ["Actually, I don't care for the stars,"] she said, as the light slipped out of his eyes and he crumpled at her feet. "Mudak." ["Asshole."]

Her mission completed, all Natalia had left to do was head to her extraction point. But it felt odd, leaving the target unconscious on an empty rooftop. She wasn't meant to question her missions, only complete them, but… she had three hours to get to the extraction point, a journey that would only take forty minutes with the motorbike she'd stolen.

Shrugging, the Widow-In-Training got comfortable behind a pair of water tanks. For an hour she watched the crumpled target, not moving a muscle in her body. She couldn't see much in the darkness, but she noticed when the target started to stir and mutter. Is this the plan? Natalia wondered. To lure him to a rooftop and then let him go home, confused?

Later, the Black Widow could hardly convince herself of what she'd seen on that rooftop. Even at the tender age of fifteen, she had been trained to observe, to pick out details that nobody else saw. But when she recalled the last she saw of her target on the cold rooftop in Khabarovsk, the only details she could call to mind were a glint of metal, two red eyes, and a rush of wind. Then the target was gone.

Natalia rode her stolen motorbike to the extraction point that night, mind reeling, unaware that she was one of many operatives going home with a story they couldn't explain.

January 1st, 2000 (13 Years Old)

Bern, Switzerland

The Wyvern stood in the corner of the raging New Year's party, wearing a pair of white shutter shades and a black dress. This wasn't the kind of mission where she had to insert herself into the middle of the party, so she stuck to the edges, sipping on a vodka tonic that wouldn't affect her in the slightest, smiling away advances from men who clearly thought she was much older than her thirteen years. She knew she didn't look as young as she was, with her height, makeup, and bearing. The purpose of the shutter-shades was partly to hide her youth (though the very well-forged I.D. had mostly taken care of that), and partly so her target wouldn't notice her surveillance.

She'd been shadowing the prominent scientist all night, waiting for him to leave. HYDRA hadn't gotten any intel on how the man planned to depart, or where he was going, so she had to follow him to get him alone. He'd mingled with the other scientists over the night, and she once thought she'd lost him when he was speaking to the conference's guest speaker, but she'd found him again by the bar.

Now, finally, it appeared he was getting ready to leave. The ball had dropped, it was the new year, time to go. She slipped out of her corner, keeping the target in the corner of her eye, and shadowed him out of the building. She shouldered past a limping man with long blonde hair and wire glasses and retrieved her duffle pack from where she'd stashed it in a bush outside the building.

The target was getting into a nondescript black car. He was alone: all the better. The Wyvern ducked into the shadows beside the building, shucked off her jacket, kicked her shoes away and pulled her folded wings from the duffle bag. It was a lot harder to get them on by herself, but she had to keep up with the target. As she reached and pulled, trying to get the wings into their moorings, she caught a snatch of conversation from a pair of women leaving the building:

"… can't believe we saw Tony Stark, he's so hot, and…" their words drifted away.

The Wyvern froze in the act of putting on her left wing. That name. It was important, she knew it – was it relevant to the target? Was he… the Wyvern's head throbbed, a sharp ache behind her eyes, and she pressed her forehead against the wall.

The mission, came a voice that sounded very like the Project Leader. The mission the mission the mission.

As if sensing her malfunction, her earpiece crackled: "Wyvern, report."

The Wyvern gritted her teeth, pressed her left wing into its mooring and then swung around. There – the target's car, peeling out of the parking lot.

"Tailing target's vehicle now," she murmured into the earpiece. The Wyvern looked around, pulled on her goggles and then jetted into the night sky. It was a freezing night, especially since she had on a backless dress instead of her combat suit, but the Wyvern set it all aside. She soared above the target's car, waiting for a moment to strike. She was an invisible weapon in the sky, wings outstretched. Her heel-spurs were already extended, a glinting barb trailing behind her.

But she couldn't quite set aside that name. Why was it important?

Finally, the target's car pulled onto a dark stretch of road with no other cars around. The Wyvern swooped, sinking her heel spurs into the roof of the car and clinging to the roof as the target panicked and screeched to a halt. She leapt from the roof, threw the target's door open and kicked her heel spur through his throat. He died in seconds.

She knew a little bit about why he had to die – he was a prominent scientist who was looking a little too closely into HYDRA interests. She didn't need to know, but the information had been a part of a cyber attack she'd orchestrated a month ago, and her handlers hadn't wiped it away.

Target eliminated, the Wyvern pushed the car to the edge of the road and off the edge, sending it tumbling down a rocky hillside into a near-frozen river. She watched the car sink into the crystalline water, then spread her wings and took off, spiralling into the night sky.

"Target eliminated," she told her handlers through the earpiece. "Inbound to extraction point."

But that name…

At her debrief, the Project Leader asked if she had recognized anyone, or been recognized. The Wyvern was concerned – could an enemy of HYDRA have made her? She said no.

She considered telling him about the name she'd heard, but she had checked it out and it was irrelevant to the mission. She held her tongue.

The name was lost when she was wiped that afternoon.

After the conference at Bern the Wyvern spent the rest of the year meddling with US politics for HYDRA. As she worked, flying out on missions and toiling over computer screens at the Québec facility, the Project Leader watched over his Wyvern. He was pleased that she was proving such a powerful weapon for HYDRA, and yet… she had more masters than just him, now. Not that he minded, but it was he who had put in years of effort to forge the blade.

And he couldn't shake the thought that there was one more test she had yet to pass.

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