"You want to be a hero? Then prove yourself. Be more than who you believe you're capable of being. Then, and only then, will you be a hero."
Chapter 1: The Lies We Tell
"So, Miss. Carter, do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
Cate looked straight into the officer's eyes. Her bright brown orbs seemed to blaze like liquid fire. "I do."
"Then let us begin." The judge slammed his small wooden hammer against the wood of the desk and his eyes met Cate's lively eyes. She swallowed her fear. She wasn't a woman who ever thought to get herself in a tizzy because of fear. She was better than that. Or, was she? She didn't know who she was surmounting above now. She had fraud, perjury, man-slaughter, and countless other offenses to her name. She was a wanted woman.
How had it gotten here? She thought to herself. Of course, that was an absurd question. She knew exactly. Her eyes watched the prosecuting lawyer below, studying her, thinking of his first question that could peel her lies piece by piece. It had all started with him. The very moment she saw him. Every atom in her body screamed that something wanted more.
"Miss. Carter," the lawyer now had collected his things. His glasses rested on his sharp nose as he watched her with beady eyes. "Would you like to explain your associations with the Nazi division, Hydra, or shall I begin?" He was good. Cate had watched this man bring down congressmen, national front runners, and A-list journalists. This man was a god in the world of law.
"Obviously, you already know, sir. Yet, please, spare me the idle chatter. You may begin." Her chocolate brown eyes met his defiantly like hardened iron. The lawyer gave her a flaming glare back, before he turned to the curious jury on the right side of the testimony stand, where large stained-glass windows rose in tall arches. Scenes of order, balance, and moral code portrayed by the Founding Fathers were the backdrop of the jury's seats. She leaned against the leather-backing of the chair, finding it easier to suppress her frantic thoughts and nerves.
"Now, Miss. Carter, you were born into the English family of Marianna Duress and Alias Duress, were you not?"
Her voice failed her, but she managed a terse nod. Her parents. They had been sweet, blissful dreams of the past that had blown away in the distant winds of time.
"From then on, after your parents' untimely accident when you were four, you and your sister, Sharon, were sent to live with your grandparents. You had no idea at the time that your grandmother, Peggy Carter, had had any affiliation with the Nazi division, Hydra, correct?" He had decided to start there, then. At the beginning. Then so be it. They would start at the beginning.
It began with the accident. She had been only four. She remembered Sharon had been riding in the back with her. It was in bits and pieces like a picture ripped apart, with several of the major parts missing. The purple birthday cake. Icing that had smeared on her fingers. Her mother was turning to scold her. A look of disdain was on her face. A semi-truck. A forty-two ton semi slammed into the front of the car. Sharon's scream cried out into the deathly silence, and then her body was thrown across Cate's. Her impact saved Cate's life. Purple icing was running down from the front seat…along with a red river running from where her father's head should have been… Cate had screamed and screamed and screamed. There was no one there, only a gawking crowd of people who scrambled around the carnage, and looked for a source of life.
She was pulled out of the wreck with sixty-two bones broken including her right leg and left arm. Another flash of memory. A woman. A woman with lush red-hair had pulled her out, along with her sister. She had reminded Cate of a monster. Her beautiful smile had been sharp and edged with a blade of violence. "Don't worry, sweetheart," she had whispered into her ear as she laid her on the stretcher. "Mummy and Daddy didn't feel a thing." Her words raked across the little girl's heart. Mummy? Her mother. Auburn curls. Bright and mirthful green eyes. Where was she? Panic had filled her. Dread had filled her entire body, her heart and stomach twisting into a conglomerated mess. Sharon was rushed past her into an ambulance.
"Where's my mum?" The woman had smiled her sharp-ledged smile. Cate wanted to scream, but everything inside of her was on fire. "Where is my mummy?!" She repeated. Her tone was urgent and desperate, a fiery determination to see her mother lit inside of her.
"She's squashed like a bug, little one." The woman's name was Sinthea. She had read it on her silvery nametag that was clipped on her pristine white jacket. Sinthea had grabbed the little girl by the arm, crushing her badly bruised bones beneath her powerful fingers. "Squashed like a little bug." Cate screamed and the whole world went black.
Sixteen Years Later…
"Agent Carter, come in, code blue, I repeat code blue. You've been compromised." Cate swore loudly and looked desperately for an exit. Her eyes training along the wall, but she found no source of an exit. She raked her eyes across a vent, and a small smile pulled at the corners of her lips.
"This is Agent Carter, boys, I'm coming." She leaped up onto the silvery table, grabbing hold of the ceiling vent just as men dressed in white uniforms came running in. They were speaking in rushed tones, urging each other into a formation. The leader went to grab her dangling boot leg, but Cate only laughed and swung it into his temple, knocking him to his back. She took out a bobby-pin from her pinned hair and struck it into the rusty nail that held the vent in place. The guards reached for her legs, and to Cate's annoyance, began shooting at her with their pistols.
"Ugh. Do you blokes ever stop?" She swung her feet up in between the rungs of the vent and hung there, while she grabbed the first man's gun out of his hand, smacking it across his temple with a smirk, as she leaped into a backwards somersault onto the second one's back, shooting him in the back of the head. She stepped off of the dead man, looking disgusted with the blood sticking to her leather unitard. "Well, that's rather revolting." She crinkled her nose and stepped back onto the table, quickly undoing the vent and jumping up through the hole. She swung herself onto the narrow ledge and crawled through the pipe, feeling a slight breeze from the outside world.
"Agent Carter? Come in." Her watch crackled slightly, but she quickly pressed the off button, before Headquarters blew her cover. She rolled her eyes: Ignorant Americans. She crawled down the tunnel, finding the vent led to the director's office. Director Fury paced back and forth below her in his office. Dammit. Cate cursed to herself as she watched Fury. Her watch lit up with a message: AGENT CARTER, RESPOND. She narrowed her eyes and grabbed the watch from off of her wrist and threw it down the vent, a beeping sound went off in the office and Fury turned in alarm. Before he could react, gas from the watch went off and he slumped down against his chair, unconscious from the effects of the drug. She delicately slid down the pipe, landing on her feet as balanced as a cat.
"Alright, Mr. Director, let's see what you've been up to." She entered the passcode quickly, the numbers on the screen lighting up to her touch. As soon as the final digit was entered a voice came through the intercom: Fury, Nicholas J., access granted. Cate got a triumphant smile on her face. This is too easy. She found the file and, of course, exactly what she had needed to find. The information SHIELD had been keeping locked up inside of itself.
Security Breach detected. The voice began a drill with red flashing lights. "Damn." She downloaded the information onto the hard-drive, before ripping it out of the large computer. Cate knew there was no time for a measly search for an exit, and she had seconds before Fury's cronies would be after her. She twirled through the air and grabbed her watch off the floor, before racing to the crystal, clear windows that looked over the picturesque city of Washington. Too bad she didn't have the time to take a picture.
Cate side kicked the window glass hard, causing a shower of glass to fall and leaving a hole with enough room for her to leap through. She stepped up to the edge looking down to the hundred feet drop below. "Agent Carter to Control. Mission Accomplished." She leaped out of the hole and into a free fall, right down to the hard cement ground. She closed her eyes and moved quickly, going into a dive-like position. Her fingers reached for her belt where she activated her parachute. As quick as lighting a spider-like web of fibers spread above her head, slowing her descent. She grabbed onto the top branch of a tree, somersaulting over the branches and onto the cement ground.
"Carter, where are you?" She heard her partner's voice crackle over the messaging system of her watch. She rolled her eyes, but broke into a fast-paced run. She heard the screech of sirens behind her… They wanted to play tag. Cate smirked and pulled a small hand-grenade out of her belt, throwing it behind her. She twirled through the air just as the explosion went off, sending off three of SHIELD's swat cars flying through the air.
"Mathias, now." She whispered into her watch, dodging flying pieces of metal that went past her. She could feel the eruption of the explosion beneath her boots as she ran, and the sound was deafening. Cate grabbed hold of a telephone pole, spotting the familiar black helicopter above her. She climbed it quickly, her legs treading the wood like it was a simple tree trunk. "Mathias! My grandmum could drive a helicopter faster than you!" She screamed into the intercom. She counted down the seconds until the helicopter was within jumping distance.
"Catherine, you have to jump!" Mathias' face was visible now through the open window of the chopper. "Carter, now, or I'll hit the building!" His eyes were widening with fear. Cate gripped the side of the telephone pole, pulling herself slowly up onto the top. Shots were fired past her from men shooting below her.
"Carter!" Cate looked up and just as the helicopter was about to scrape across SHIELD's beloved Triskelion she leaped and grabbed hold of the silvery ladder, swinging herself up into the machine. She grabbed hold of a rung to steady herself as Mathias blasted through the air, avoiding shots from air carriers.
"You sure like to waste your time, don't you, Andrew?" Cate drew out as she hopped into the copilot seat, propping her feet up onto the controls and leaning back into the seat. She could tell by Mathias' expression he was furious, his hands clamped into a death grip on the controls of the chopper. She knew from previous experience that Mathias should not have been prodded any more than he already was.
"Andrew…" She sighed and looked at him with a pleading expression. "You have to forgive me."
"You could have gotten killed, Cate. Not just you. Us. Both of us." His words were laced with bitterness. She felt the biting stab of his words sink in, but she didn't reveal it. Her face was refrained to the same mask of calm it was always set in. Her sharp, yet elegant features staring straight ahead. "I don't know what you think, Cate, but this isn't just about you trying to get your one moment of glory anymore. This encompasses the sovereignty of the whole damn world. Do you even understand that?"
Cate didn't say anything.
"Would you listen to me!" His words slapped her across the face, leaving a stinging sensation in her heart.
She turned sharply to face him, her chocolate brown eyes meeting his with an intense stare. "Yes, Andrew, I understand that. I didn't join the damn CIA because I believed that America was the country I wanted to live in. I joined this program because it meant something to me. This isn't a little game we can continue to play, Mathias, where we pretend like there isn't a threat to the U.S., we have to be realists. Real authentic people."
"And you think that's who you are? The girl who lies to herself every other second?" Mathias snapped at her. He flew into a cloud, his grey eyes looked on ahead with a certain hate. What he said was true. She was the girl who lied. Since she was fifteen, she had been the CIA's little spy. Five years later, here she was, still pretending to be the one person she wasn't.
"Maybe I am, Andrew, but at least I know the lies I speak."
"No one knows the lies they tell, Carter, that's why they're called lies."