• The mission was supposed to be routine.

A forgotten HYDRA outpost buried deep beneath the mountains. No active personnel. No signs of recent occupation. Just another bunker to clear, catalog, and destroy.

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes sweep through level after level without incident. Empty barracks. Dust-covered laboratories. Long-abandoned weapons storage. The place feels dead.

Until they discover an elevator hidden behind three layers of security doors.

The sublevel shouldn't exist.

According to the blueprints, it doesn't.

Expecting another laboratory, they force their way inside.

Instead, they find a daycare.

Not a neglected one. Not an abandoned one.

A fully operational, completely automated daycare environment humming quietly beneath the mountain.

Artificial sunlight glows from panels overhead. Toys are neatly organized. Children's books line shelves. Tiny clothes are folded with military precision. Robotic caretakers continue their programmed routines as if nothing is wrong.

And in the middle of it all is a single child.

A little girl no older than four.

The moment Bucky sees her, his blood runs cold.

She has his hair.

His smile.

But her eyes…colbalt grey. Like…no. Impossible.

Like the youngest Romanoff upstairs, doing a sweep with her sisters, who have green eyes.

She looks so much like him that Steve initially thinks he's hallucinating.

The child isn't frightened by the sudden appearance of armed strangers. Instead, she beams the moment she sees Bucky.

As if she's been waiting for him.

As if she knows exactly who he is.

Then she says the one thing neither super soldier is prepared to hear:

Dada

Now Steve and Bucky must uncover why HYDRA created a child who appears to be Bucky's daughter, when they used his DNA, and why she's been hidden beneath a mountain for years, and what the organization intended to do with her.

Because the deeper they dig, the more disturbing the truth becomes.

The daycare wasn't built to keep her contained.

It was built to keep her hidden.

From him.

And somewhere in HYDRA's files is proof that this little girl was never meant to be found. *