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Didn't Think It Would Come to This

Sharon Carter was not a traitor. She'd had to argue her case before her superiors for a few days after being placed on probation for over a month. Never one to miss an opportunity, she had used the time off to see the sites, particularly those about which Aunt Peggy had told her tales. There were many and she found her time adequately filled. Which helped keep some of her second-guessing at bay.

Because it could not be proven that she had given Captain America and the Falcon their gear prior to the fight at the Leipzig Airport, nor that she had aided them in any way, she was eventually reinstated with nothing more than a warning about future attachments. That was funny. Tony Stark was the poster child for emotionally compromised and she was the one being closely monitored? Still, she agreed to the terms and returned to work.

It was not an easy job to have, but she was proud to carry on the Carter legacy however she could. SHIELD was gone and Aunt Peggy had supported her decision to join the CIA when the opportunity presented itself. A great deal of former SHIELD agents had been moved to other intelligence agencies in the aftermath, but she was one of the few who had proven her worth early on, thus avoiding a desk job. It was important to her to not be considered a legacy, so she continued to keep her relation to Margaret Carter a secret.

After her forced vacation, she was glad to have something worthwhile to do. There was always some mess to clean up, some group to investigate to keep people safe. If she had to work her way up from desk jockey again, she was willing. Even if it meant working a few cold cases before being entrusted with anything more important for a while. Nothing could compare to when she'd been with SHIELD, but this was alright.

The cold cases were intriguing, like a woman named Susan Scarbo who had been killed in the London Underground. It appeared that she had been involved in some kind of terror attack, as there was residue from an incendiary device that had never been recovered. The woman's past was quiet, nothing out of the ordinary, so it was believed that she was a witness and the actual terrorists had been startled out of using that particular location for their plot.

Sharon investigated Scarbo's known associates and was able to find enough bread crumbs to connect her to HYDRA. Her superiors congratulated her on what they considered a solve, and she was given more recent cases to work with: a former French minister of defense was in a fatal accident in Algeria and an ex-official of the USSR who had been shot in the head at his home in the Bahamas.

The latter of these was obviously a hit, but the former had evidence suggesting it wasn't entirely accidental. Sharon began by traveling to question the witnesses, starting in Algeria. Their statements were already in the file, so nothing really popped – except when she talked to an elderly woman who lived right next to the site of the accident. She rambled a lot and Sharon was already planning her next move when the woman declared that Algeria was its own country now and France had no reason to start another war.

"What?" Sharon asked, at a loss.

"Like the last time! When I was a child, the French Minister was here and he was killed! We sent a peace emissary and they were blown up! It was years of bloodshed," the woman insisted with wide eyes.

Sharon patted her hand awkwardly. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about," she said soothingly.

Eventually she was able to tear herself away and head to the Bahamas. After the usual questions, she subtly prodded each witness to hear if they had heard of any similar events happening before. It turned out another official from the USSR, one rumored to be in charge of a gulag, had been killed in much the same way a few decades earlier.

Two such cases being repeats of the past seemed like more than a coincidence. It certainly required some more investigation. On the flight back home, she poured over the old files and the new reports in search of some connection to each other. The newer ones seemed to be less professionally done (though that was small comfort to their victims), which could indicate that someone less experienced was performing the new ones. Since time was probably of the essence, she sent in a report stating her theory before continuing to research.

As far as she could tell, there was no reason these two hits would be chosen to replicate. Nothing about the victims, the locations, or the methods gave any clues. The original cases had suspect lists composed of basically all professional assassins known to be working at the time. Even some that weren't. So that was no help.

While she was on a layover at Newark Airport in New York, she got an unexpected phone call.

"Carter, where are you?" Neal Tapper wanted to know.

They'd worked together several times before and even dated briefly. Very briefly. But he would have called her Sharon if it was just a social call. "Newark, headed back. Why?"

"You'd better cancel that flight and get a car. There's been a murder we need investigated quietly."

"Where?" she asked, heading out of the terminal.

"I'll send you the address. You should be able to get there in a couple hours, at this time of day."

She didn't want to complain, but she had to ask. "Why me?" Certainly the CIA would have plenty of other agents in the area who could investigate. And after her forced hiatus she didn't think she was the most trusted.

"I read your report. I was looking for any other copycat hits."

"Which this one is?"

"I don't know, Sharon. But in the seventies, there was a senator killed at home in his pool, and now we have another found in the same circumstances."

Pursing her lips, she considered that he had a good point. And that she hadn't expected Tapper to be reading her reports. Had she sunk so low that he was her superior now? "Alright. Send me everything you've got."

"Let me know if you need anything," he offered, his tone gentler than it had been.

"I'll be fine," she assured him.

Renting a car was easy enough and she was soon on her way to the crime scene. If her hunch was correct, then it was going to be very important to find some connection between this attack and the previous two. Otherwise… Knowing that someone was copying old files would hardly be an advantage if it didn't provide a means for predicting more such acts.

Several years ago, SHIELD was destroyed. They were corrupted by HYDRA and Sharon had immediately sided with Captain America. Steve. Not because she had any particular loyalty to him, or strong feelings about him at the time, but because she knew what he stood for. What she knew made him a hero with or without the outfit. Why she was certain he was still out there, doing some good where ever he could, while her bosses and even more powerful people tried to hunt him down. They were wrong about him, about everything, if they thought he was just a vigilante who should be stopped.

More relevantly, the loss of SHIELD had been accompanied by Natasha Romanoff uploading all their secrets to the internet. This had already proved to be ill-advised because of what Zemo had been able to do with that information. Now the CIA, and presumably other intelligence organizations, had increased staff to pour over these documents in search of any other unforeseen weaknesses.

That someone might just pick assassinations at random to replicate had not occurred to anyone. And would be very difficult to stop. What could they do, just warn everyone who met the description of someone who had been assassinated before? That wasn't feasible or particularly useful.

The files Tapper had sent her had the suspect list highlighted, she noticed after she'd parked at her destination. Since the original crimes had happened decades apart, they only had one name in common – the Winter Soldier. She snorted. People attributed any unsolvable case to him, up to and including the Kennedy Assassination. Probably not much of a lead there, she thought, then headed inside.