Chapter 889

"How is it?" Peggy Carter asked, her confidence wavering. "You think it’s nonsense too, right?"

"Yes," Evenson said almost immediately. "It’s definitely hard to believe."

"So you think I was under too much stress and dreamed up something ridiculous?"

"That would be my guess."

Evenson nodded, then added, "Try having a few drinks before bed next time. Get yourself properly exhausted. Though maybe don’t overdo it. An upset stomach won’t exactly help you sleep."

Hail Hydra?

Evenson was even less willing to believe it than Peggy.

Of all the people in the world who might secretly be working for Hydra, Captain America was the one person he simply couldn’t accept.

Steve Rogers had personally defeated the Red Skull and helped bring down Hydra’s plan for world domination. He was practically the living embodiment of American ideals. The idea of that man casually turning around and joining Hydra was absurd.

Unless someone had rewritten his entire life from the ground up.

And that wasn’t something Evenson was prepared to entertain.

For several seconds, the room fell silent.

Then Peggy and Evenson looked at each other.

"Could it really be impossible?" they asked simultaneously.

Neither of them liked the question.

The dream was absurd. The final words were even more absurd. Yet once the possibility had been spoken aloud, neither could completely dismiss it.

Peggy was the first to break the silence.

"I know how ridiculous this sounds, but if we look at it objectively, Steve might not have joined Hydra willingly."

"Of course not." Evenson frowned. "If he were forced, though, how? Torture? Interrogation? I can’t see Steve breaking under physical pain."

"I don’t think he’d break from pain either." Peggy hesitated. "What about coercion?"

Evenson said nothing.

"You told me Hydra has an enhanced operative called the Winter Soldier," Peggy continued. "And his real identity is... Bucky Barnes."

"Yeah."

"So what if Hydra used him against Steve? They take Bucky hostage and tell Steve that if he doesn’t cooperate, they’ll kill him."

"No."

Peggy frowned.

Evenson shook his head. "I understand why you’re worried. But Steve might hesitate. He might even pretend to cooperate. I don’t believe he’d simply surrender."

"Steve cares deeply about the people around him."

Peggy’s voice softened.

"He wakes up after decades of suspended animation and discovers that almost everyone he knew is gone. His friends. His family. Everyone except me. Imagine what that does to a man."

"And then he discovers Bucky is alive."

She paused.

"Do you understand how much that could mean to him?"

"So you’re saying Bucky and you are equally important to Steve?"

Peggy gave him a sharp look.

"I don’t like the way you phrased that."

"But?"

"But I understand what you’re getting at. Yes. Steve would hesitate."

How is that phrased unfair? If we’re counting history, Steve knew Bucky long before he knew you.

Evenson wisely kept that thought to himself.

"Hesitate, sure," he said. "But that’s where it ends. If Hydra threatened Bucky, Steve would play along long enough to figure out a way out. Then he’d contact us and organize a rescue. That’s the Steve Rogers I know."

"But what if Hydra convinced him that everyone around him was compromised?"

Peggy gestured around them.

"Look at SHIELD. They don’t even need to fabricate much. Hydra has infiltrated the organization so thoroughly that Steve would have every reason to suspect the people around him."

"They could tell him you’re compromised. They could tell him I’m compromised. They don’t need him to believe it completely. They only need to make him doubt us."

"Pressure doesn’t make Steve surrender. It makes him fight harder."

Evenson’s voice was firm.

"If Hydra cornered him, he’d probably try to handle everything himself. He’d go after Bucky alone if necessary. He wouldn’t become one of them."

"Unless he was brainwashed."

Evenson stared at her.

"That," he said, "is even less believable."

"You’re dismissing it too easily."

"I’ve seen what Steve can endure. Brainwashing isn’t going to work on him."

"You’re assuming brainwashing is something you simply resist through willpower."

Peggy’s expression hardened.

"I’ve seen what a real hypnotist can do."

"Johann Fennhoff?"

"You mentioned him the first time we met," Peggy said. "You know what you read in his files. I know what he actually did."

She pointed toward the floor.

"I watched him take complete control of the head of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. He only had to turn a ring and speak a few words. One of our professionally trained agents walked back and forth across a road outside a bar three times before a car hit him."

Evenson’s expression slowly changed.

"Howard Stark was hypnotized into flying an aircraft that nearly dropped chemical weapons on New York."

Peggy pointed toward Dottie.

"And Dottie Underwood? A Soviet operative trained from childhood through brutal conditioning. One of Leviathan’s earliest agents. Fennhoff reduced her to an obedient puppet."

"Puppet is a little harsh, Peggy."

Dottie had apparently recovered.

Peggy didn’t even look at her.

"Don’t interrupt."

She stepped on the remote.

Electricity crackled.

Dottie convulsed and immediately collapsed again.

Evenson watched the smoke rising from her.

I’m beginning to think Peggy has some very specific ideas about conflict resolution.

Peggy continued as though nothing had happened.

"I eventually captured Fennhoff, but he was imprisoned in an Animus Zola facility. If he gave Hydra everything he knew about hypnosis and psychological conditioning, then Hydra’s capabilities in that area could be considerably worse than we thought."

Evenson frowned.

He had read the files on Fennhoff before, but hearing Peggy describe what she’d personally witnessed gave the story an entirely different weight.

"Skills aren’t enough," Evenson said. "Hypnosis depends on talent. Timing. Voice. Body language. Facial expressions. Eye contact. Every little detail matters."

He wasn’t dismissing hypnosis entirely.

As a Warlock, Evenson had studied manipulation, seduction, and corruption extensively. It wasn’t the same discipline, but the underlying principles weren’t completely foreign to him.

"Hydra clearly doesn’t have another Fennhoff," he continued. "And even if they could replicate his techniques, conditioning someone like Steve would take time. A lot of it. They’d need repeated exposure, the right circumstances, and no interruptions."

Peggy’s expression became grim.

"They had time."

Evenson paused.

"Steve was found frozen in the ice. SHIELD controlled his recovery from the beginning."

Her eyes darkened.

"How many people inside SHIELD were Hydra? How many Hydra agents were involved in bringing Steve back? What if the entire process was controlled by them?"

Evenson’s expression slowly changed.

"You’re saying Steve was already brainwashed before he ever met us."

"I don’t want to believe it."

Peggy looked down.

"But think about it. We spent three years searching for Steve after he disappeared. Howard and I followed every possible lead. We found the Tesseract, but not him."

She looked back at Evenson.

"Three years. Nothing."

"And then, more than sixty years later, a Russian oil exploration team happens to find him buried in the ice."

Her laugh was bitter.

"And those Russians immediately report their discovery to the American military and SHIELD. Their dedication to international law is almost touching."

Evenson rubbed his chin.

"In our line of work, people always say there are no coincidences."

He sighed.

"Sometimes there really are."

"But you see my point."

Evenson thought about it.

"You think Hydra arranged for Steve to be found."

"It’s possible."

Peggy’s voice was quieter now.

"More than that. The Valkyrie was a Hydra aircraft. It launched from a Hydra base. They would have known its capabilities, its route, and the likely location of the crash better than anyone."

Evenson frowned.

"That raises another problem. If Hydra knew where Steve was, why wait sixty years?"

"They may not have had the resources to retrieve him earlier."

Peggy folded her arms.

"Or they did."

She looked toward the unconscious Dottie.

"After you told me about the Winter Soldier, I started digging into the old reports myself."

Her expression tightened.

"The Winter Soldier appears everywhere. Assassinations. Sabotage. Political killings. Then he vanishes without a trace. Stranger still, there are reports placing him in different locations at nearly the same time."

"I used to think someone was simply blaming unrelated incidents on him."

"But now?"

Peggy’s eyes narrowed.

"The Winter Soldier may not be one person."

Evenson’s eyes widened.

"I see."

"You’re thinking it was a title."

"Exactly."

Evenson slowly pieced the theory together.

"Hydra recovered Steve decades ago. They brainwashed him and used him as another Winter Soldier. He and Bucky both operated under the same identity."

Peggy nodded.

"Then, when Hydra decided the time was right, they froze Steve again and manufactured the circumstances that allowed him to be publicly rediscovered."

Evenson slapped his thigh.

"Oh, come on!"

Peggy blinked.

"Seriously? You need to hear yourself."

He pointed at her.

"That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s an entire season of a television show."

"Reality can be stranger than fiction."

"Sure. But everything you’ve said is built on one dream."

Evenson was about to continue when his phone rang.

He glanced at the screen.

Cleah.

He answered.

"Cleah? Yeah, I’m busy right now. Can we—"

He paused.

"Oh? Your operation is finished?"

His expression brightened slightly.

"That must be a new experience for you."

He listened.

"The Black Mark Division was with you?"

A smile tugged at his mouth.

"So the Aserda twins actually sent people to help. Good. And you ran into some former SHIELD recruits?"

He nodded.

"That’s useful. The Black Mark Division could use more people like that. Tell me everything when you get back. I’d rather hear it in person."

A beat.

"Cleah, I really need to—"

"Listen, Evenson."

Her tone stopped him.

"We were supposed to capture Clairvoyant. We succeeded, but everyone on the team agrees that something doesn’t add up."

Evenson’s expression sharpened.

"Meaning?"

"We think the person we caught isn’t the real Clairvoyant."

Silence.

"There may be someone else behind him."

Evenson straightened.

"Who?"

Cleah hesitated.

"Prepare yourself."

Her voice dropped.

"The real Clairvoyant might be... Phil Coulson."

Evenson stared at the phone.

Oh.

Agent Coulson.

Of course.

Because apparently the universe had decided that today wasn’t absurd enough.

He almost laughed.

Almost.

But somehow, he couldn’t.

"How did you come to that conclusion?"