Having slept in after snoozing the alarm a few times, Jane and Kurt were running behind getting to the subway, so they skipped breakfast at home. Kurt stopped at the coffee cart on the way, and when he traded the vendor cash for their coffees, the newspaper headline caught his attention. He handed over a bit of extra cash for the paper, folded it under his arm, gave a coffee to Jane, and walked with her to the subway. "Put your hood on," he requested, pulling it on top of her head for her.
She swatted with her hand, trying to wave away the unwanted action. "What are you doing? You're going to mess up my hair."
He checked her neck, ensuring her hood now covered it. "Leave it," he instructed. She complied, confused by his behavior, yet it wasn't worth arguing over a hood. They could talk about it later when he was less agitated. And she was more caffeinated.
His eyes dropped to her hands, her thumbs through the cuffs of her jacket already concealing the tattoos there. They stepped onto the subway and stood next to each other, Kurt's gaze meticulously circling the subway car. "What is going on with you today?" she asked, trying to figure out what he was looking for and why he was acting so weird.
Her eyes landed on a tented newspaper in someone's hands in the middle of the subway car and widened in shock. "We have a problem," Kurt confirmed quietly, unfolding and showing her the matching newspaper under his arm, "straight to Reade when we get in."
Jane lowered her head and pulled her hood a bit tighter, now captivated by her coffee.
All eyes across the bullpen drifted to Jane and Kurt when they exited the elevator. Reade stood beside it, waiting. "Come with me to the lab," he shared, guiding them away from their sudden audience, "team's there."
In the solitude of the lab, Kurt dropped the newspaper on the table with a slap and crossed his arms in frustration. "What the hell is this?"
"Can we please read it first?" Jane suggested. "I have no idea what we're dealing with."
Rich entered a few keystrokes and the monitors came to life. "Study, class."
"Rich, get the picture out of there," Patterson scolded, striking a few keys of her own, leaving them only the text to peruse.
FBI Bombshell: Tattooed Terrorist, the headline read. It alleged the FBI was harboring a terrorist, and the article inside highlighted it was the very same woman who had been found in Times Square some years ago. The woman who was currently reading the physical copy of the newspaper on the table, her eyes glued to the photograph. "Well, it's not wrong," Jane spoke, her fingers tracing the image she couldn't pull her eyes from. "This photo is from evidence."
Her naked, curled body donned the front page of the newspaper, only lightly edited to be made suitable for print and replace the background with basic black. It had been an early shot while she was in medical, before they knew anything about what was going on with her, before she met Kurt. When she was broken, vulnerable, and exposed. Kurt put the newspaper back together, folding it over again, his fist resting beside it. "How did that get leaked?" Kurt asked.
"I already scanned. No unauthorized access," Patterson reported.
"How about authorized?" Reade asked.
"Nothing," Patterson confirmed.
"I crosschecked all media. That's the only newspaper that ran the story," Rich shared. "That gives Reade somewhere to start calling to shut this down."
Patterson kept pecking at her keyboard. "Guys, we have a bigger problem." Her voice carried the fretful tension of having found more information.
Patterson cued a national news network onto the monitors, which had just started televising breaking news of a similar story about Jane. Have you seen this woman? the voiceover implied, report her. Patterson pulled it from the monitors when they broadcast a spread-eagle photo of Jane being scanned Vitruvian Man style.
Jane turned away from the monitors, her hand over her mouth and her shoulders slumping. The flood of saliva in her mouth tasted of betrayal, and she struggled to keep from being sick. Kurt slammed his fist on the table, unable to contain his outrage.
The team was left to standby, merely a few more onlookers in the exhibition of their friend. "Find the leak," Reade stressed. "Jane, Kurt - my office."
The walk from the lab to Reade's office attracted countless looky-loos. No one dared say anything, yet their eyes traveled the entire length of the trip. Was that wonder? Disdain? Or just plain curiosity?
Jane used the trek to quell her stomach, swallowing saliva until her status upgraded from unwell to uneasy. "How did they get those photos?" Jane asked as soon as they entered the privacy of his office. "They were all taken in confidence. To help. Not…this."
Reade walked around the room, pulling the blinds. "We don't know yet. Jane, I'm sorry, this is abhorrent."
Jane wrapped her arms around herself as if to shield prying eyes. "I'm all over the news!"
"It's a national security breach," Reade added, trying to convey the level of severity and therefore resources they would be able to invest in halting it.
Her ire flash banged the room. "It's a breach of my privacy!"
Deflated, she retreated to the back of the office, taking up residence on the floor. Kurt looked to catch her eyes, yet she dropped her head, momentarily shutting out everything in the room.
Kurt rested his fists on Reade's desk. His anger rippled in his eyebrows and gruff voice. "Get it pulled, now," he demanded.
"That will be my very next call." Reade continued the conversation with Kurt, letting Jane be. "Is there anyone inside these walls that has been giving either of you trouble lately?"
"Weitz threatened me, threatened exposing Jane," Kurt revealed. "I held up my end of the bargain, though, so it doesn't make any sense for him to not hold up his. If this was him, he's done."
"So I'll quietly look into Weitz's activity," Reade indicated. "Anyone else?"
"No one else inside here," Kurt confirmed and groaned, "everyone else outside here."
Reade left Jane and Kurt in his office, as it was easier for him to move than have them get eyed through the hallways again. Jane sat on the floor in one corner of the office, her spine tucked into the wall and her knees bent in front of her. Kurt stood next to her, tapping her shoe with his. "What are you thinking?" he asked.
"How long until we can go home," Jane admitted.
"We can go now," Kurt offered.
"No, we need to help," Jane declined. She brought her fingers up over her eyes. "I didn't want anyone else to know the details of my life. Our lives. It's so personal."
There was little he could do to offer comfort in the office, and even less since she had backed herself into a corner. "I didn't either."
"I'm so angry, Kurt." Her voice was cold and level, all of her anger currently tied up in her tense form knotted on the floor.
"You want to punch something? I can sneak down to the gym and bring back one of the standing forms," Kurt offered.
She didn't want to camp out in Reade's office all day. "Let's just go down to the gym," Jane suggested, tapping his shoe back, "I know you want to punch something." She removed herself from her hiding spot and they left the room together. Prying eyes were waiting for her, yet she ducked her head, heading to the locker room to change.
At this time in the morning, the gym was a bit quieter, most folks typically visiting before work, after work, or at lunch. The few exercisers were occupied, more focused on their workouts than noticing Jane and Kurt had joined them.
They both started out warming up alternating through the heavy bags, keeping things interesting by throwing out a different combination each time through. "Jab, back-fist, cross, round, switch-round," Jane had called. Kurt followed with a "Cross, hook, cross, elbow, elbow, knee, switch-knee." They annihilated the bags, taking out their energy on faceless opponents.
They continued their way through combinations, both of them getting soaked through with sweat, until Kurt offered, "I'll hold pads for you."
He took her through a drill of rounds of all different heights. Her head kicks carried the strength to knock out a shorter man. Her push kicks sent him forcibly backward, all the while cheering her on with "C'mon Jane, another."
After a few tornado kicks, she indicated, "Your turn."
She took him through the same set of kicking drills, challenging him to kick higher and higher. "I can't kick that high," he laughed, "I'm not as flexible as you."
Jane taunted him, a huge smile spreading across her face as she held the pads high again. Being playful in return, he tried, yet couldn't hit them; she dropped the pads at the last moment to catch his kick. She nudged him in the side with one of the pads, tickling him briefly with her fingers over the end of the grip.
She took him through a series of combos and elbow drills, then teased, "Superman punch!" and smiled as he threw all of his body weight behind his crosses. What he lacked in flexibility he made up for in force.
The workout had done its job, their rage temporarily converted into sweat dripping down their faces and drenching their t-shirts. "Showers?" he asked, taking off his gloves.
"Yeah," she agreed.
Kurt's complaint of "I'm starving," found them seeking out the cafeteria for early lunch. Jane chose to sit at a table in the back while Kurt collected food. "I got you tomato soup." Kurt set a small container and spoon in front of her. "I can get you something else to go with it." She shook her head - she wasn't really hungry, yet he would feel better if she ate something.
When she kept glancing around the cafeteria, he suggested, "It's just you and me." Her eyes returned to the soup in front of her. His foot rested beside hers under the table, offering a close comfort.
He downed chicken tacos, the smell of barbecue and pico wafting to her nose. She was only half done by the time his food was cleared, yet he sat patiently while she sipped. "You're always hungry," she noted, a curl at the corner of her mouth.
"You're rarely hungry," he teased back. "You need fuel to kick ass. Eat."
She smiled and continued eating her soup. "It wouldn't make sense for him to have done this. You would just expose him," she spoke what was on her mind, leaving out names in the public setting.
"It's an endless pool of options," Kurt added. They wouldn't have much to contribute until the team could narrow things down a bit.
"Back to the lab?"
"Sure."
"While the two of you were beating the crap out of each other, we found a grand total of nothing," Rich shared, frustrated.
"Not nothing. Just not something, yet," Patterson corrected. "There are four different photos that we know were leaked. The two you already saw, and these."
Patterson briefly cued them up on the monitor. One was Kurt's name branded across Jane's upper back. The other was Jane outside their apartment? "That's me when I was presenting as Remi," Jane indicated, "and how does that photo even exist?"
"I took it," Kurt shared, "when I was tailing you trying to figure out what was going on."
"So three of the photos are from when Jane first arrived. The fourth is more recent. There of them are from in the lab, one is from in public. Three of them are nudes, one of them is not," Rich summarized, "We don't have a lot to go on here."
Patterson gave a rundown on trying to recapture the stolen images. "Reade immediately got the one of your apartment pulled citing agent safety - it was live less than 15 minutes. He got the one on the newspaper pulled from any additional production. They are not budging on the scans I took here in the lab - Reade is still on the phone trying to negotiate."
"The most compromising photos," Jane said under her breath.
"At least they're tasteful nudes," Rich gauged.
Everyone stared at Rich. "No one asked your opinion," Kurt barked, cutting off any further conversation on the topic.
Jane caught Rich's eyes. "Filter," she mouthed.
Kurt held his phone up. "Reade wants us back in his office."
Reade had settled into his chair, his suit starting to get rumpled. He and Tasha had been making nonstop calls and in person visits trying to stop any further spread of the stolen images and text. "I can have you brought to a safe house," Reade offered.
"I just want to go home," Jane respectfully declined.
"I'll have a detail waiting for you out back when you're ready," Reade shared.
Jane wasn't following. "What do you mean?"
Reade shared a photo on his phone. "This is what it looks like out front. I'm sorry, Jane, but you can't go anywhere without a detail. It's not safe."
Many people were gathered at the front of the FBI, held behind temporary barriers. All of this in only half the day? Kurt took in the drop in Jane's shoulders and the look of defeat crossing her features. "Do you need us for anything else here right now?" Kurt asked.
"No," Reade confirmed, "Tasha and I just need more time with the media to negotiate getting everything shut down. I'll call you as soon as we have anything else."
Kurt squeezed Jane's shoulder and met her eyes, confirming his decision. "We're ready to go home."
Their block was plastered with television trucks, foreshadowing the mob of people that congregated outside of their apartment building, waiting for them. Reade picked up as soon as Kurt called him. "I thought the team said the photo of our building was only live for 15 minutes," Kurt said in frustration.
"What's the problem?" Reade asked.
Kurt surveyed the scene outside the window. "The media's here - the only way into our building is through them."
"I'll have them bring you to the safe house instead. Give me to Bill - it'll only take a few minutes."
Kurt handed his phone to the agent driving. "What's going on?" Jane asked.
He took her hand, knowing she wouldn't like his answer. "They're going to take us to a safe house for the night."
She shook her head and pursed her lips. "All I want is to go home."
"I know. I know."