star-bruised

In the long, blood-smeared history of the Red Room, there was one passage buried deeper than the rest—erased, denied, a whisper at most: the defection of a Black Widow. The first to do so. It was a disgrace. A proof of everything the Red Room didn't want in their trained assassins and the first step in what would lead to their total submission. The Widow however was not as free as she deemed. Not truly. Freedom was a fantasy they had carved out of her long ago, replaced with ruthlessness and the echo of gunfire as a lullaby. The Red Room had raised her to kill, trained her to survive, and robbed her of of her future. If this legacy was the only mark she could leave behind, then let it be soaked in violence. Let them choke on it.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤThe Cuervos would be the sharpened edge of that legacy and Jill Pérez the wielder.

A girl torn apart, left on the streets of Havana. A trembling, weak nobody who fought for her place in the hallways of the orphanage. She was reforged into one of the first Talons, an elite among the elite. Assassins, infiltrators, thieves, spies—molded to bring about NIDO's vision of a reshaped world. But the Talons? They are the things other monsters hide from. She was La Reina's right hand. The best, the worst, her princess, the closest to what the Red Room had once taken from her.

ㅤㅤIn another life, Jill might have been someone else. A friend. A lover. Maybe even a wife. But not in this world. Here, she was a weapon. Here, softness rusted in the blood. A tender soul buried under layers of steel and walls no one could breach. And somewhere beyond that fortress, vindictiveness waited. This path crossed with the bloodied trail of a myth and a ghost story: The Winter Soldier.

The day Captain America fought the world's deadliest assassin in Washington D.C., wasn't the first time Cuerva stood in the Winter Soldier's crossfire. Both had left bruises on each other, both had fought, both had lived to fight each other another day.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤShe knew his steps, the rhythm of his heart, the haunted precision in every move of his .

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤAnd he knew her. He knew her attacks before they happened. Her fury. Her fearlessness. Her eyes.

She had survived him more than once. They had been playing their own game of hunter and prey. A game NIDO did not support. It was a rivalry. A cold, sharp love an enemy held for another. It was an attachment and attachments were forbidden, no matter the kind.

Their encounters blurred the line between survival and something more intimate—more dangerous. Not affection, no. But understanding. Recognition. The way two blades recognize one another just before they clash.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤTo her, he was a shadow she couldn't shake. To him, she was a mirror he never asked to look into.

He barely spoke during their battles. His silence, however, spoke volumes. And later, when she saw what lay beneath the metal arm and mission code—when she met James Buchanan Barnes—something within her cracked.

When the world began to dissolve, when SHIELD fell, the Avengers disintegrated, the world ended only to be rebuild and brought into a new order, one question crossed both their minds:

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤWho—if you scrap away the layers of blood, of guilt, of nightmares, all the walls of steel—are they really?

MAIN STORY !

Prologue: The Death of Girlhood.

SEASON ONE: The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea.

• SET IN... Captain America: The Winter Soldier • Chapter One — Ten published 1 of 10 (as of July 26th 2026)

ONE-SHOTS / AU / Deleted Scenes !