I'm glad you guys are enjoying my story so far, truly! This chapter took me a hot minute, there were a couple parts that (tbh) I'm still not sold on cadence wise, but its time to quit dwelling on this one! Also, Morgzw, Pierce is absolutely a trash man. He has always been one of my least favorite characters, so I've leaned heavily into my dislike of the man... I just hope its not too much. That being said I think Robert Redford did a great job playing him as a trash man.
Anyway, no trigger warnings this chapter! Please enjoy!
Fun fact: I uploaded this *SUNDAY* and forgot to actually... post it... So, sorry about that. On the plus side, you'll get two chapters tonight instead. *jazz hands*
Three: Рассвет
January 9th
"World Security Council," Anya said stepping into the Triskelion elevator.
"61st level," the computer repeated as she turned to face the doors, "Good morning, Anna Jackson."
"Good—" Anya started, but stopped and quickly leaned forward hitting the door hold on the elevator keypad as she saw Fury striding toward her. He noticed her hold the elevator doors and approached even quicker. The moment he was inside she let the button go.
"Thank you, Miss Jackson," he said adjusting his long leather coat.
"You're welcome, sir," she said before calling to the elevator computer, "41st floor, please." The computer responded once more in confirmation. "I see you skipped the coffee today."
"I had a cup at home," he said, "I decided I didn't need my coffee trying to kill me as well."
"It would be quite an impressive feat if it did," she commented with a partial smile. Fury stood facing the doors and as per usual Annie stood on his left side. He turned his head, looking at her to reply but caught himself critically looking over her clothing choice instead.
She stood tall beside him in white, six-inch, heels—which he realized made Annie exactly his height—and judging by their lack of dirt or scuffing he assumed they were new. She was also wearing a white high-waist pant suit but instead of a button up shirt beneath her matching suit jacket, she was wearing a black lace camisole. Various gold chains adorned her neck and waistline, and a large gold watch was on her right wrist. It was far too large on her wrist and reminded him of one of the watches he had seen Pierce wear before.
"You're dressed to the nine's," he said. She looked down at her clothes, then back at Fury.
"I have meetings for the Secretary today," she said with a pause before she continued, "he advised clothing like this." Fury let out a strangled laugh.
"I'm sure!" he said, "And if you told me, he bought those for you it wouldn't surprise me either." She didn't respond, unsure if there was a response she could give, so looked back toward the doors.
He noticed her awkwardness at the comment and his brain began turning. A laugh from her wouldn't have been out of place. Her silence, however, was. He looked at the doors as well, then to the floor counter. They were only to the 10th floor, and that was still plenty of time to get more information out of her.
"I'm anticipating a visit from Steve Roger's today," he began. He was preparing to ask her if she wanted to meet the man, but she interrupted before he could continue on.
"I know that name," she responded softly. He looked over at her incredulously.
"I'm sure you do, he's Captain America. Kind of the reason SHIELD has its name," he said, and she looked at him questioningly.
"I just mean—" she began to defend before she stopped herself and carried on in a different direction, "I thought it stood for—"
"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, yeah, it does," he said interrupting her, "Computer, stop the elevator—" He leaned forward, turning to face her as he continued, "Do you really not know who you're working for, Miss Jackson?"
"I work for Alexander Pierce," she defended as the elevator came to a stop, "He brought me in and told me not to ask questions. I do as he tells me."
'She isn't someone to be trusted,' Romanoff's voice echoed in his brain. He didn't trust anyone anyway but Annie's blind allegiance to Pierce was more off putting than Fury had expected. He once again looked over her clothing options and thought on her words. He pulled out his phone and after a few seconds she noticed the blinking light on the camera turn off.
"What is Pierce to you, Miss Jackson?" he asked. She looked at the camera then to Fury. He lifted his phone and on the screen in blinking capital letters it read, 'FEED CUT'. She frowned looking back at him.
"My employer," she began, "Who will not be happy with me that I'm late."
"He'll manage," Fury stated, "So you're willing to just follow him blindly because he told you not to ask questions?" She looked at Fury, her jaw locking and her eyes squinting in annoyance. Suddenly, she felt as if she should have taken the shot on him the day before.
"And what would you have me do?" she asked seething, "Pierce is my commander. He tells me what to do and I do it. I don't have the luxury of choice, Fury, questions are simply unacceptable. He answers what he chooses. He does with me as he chooses. My life is his and I—"
She stopped abruptly as she realized her mistake.
Fury was staring her down, his eye narrowed in suspicion. She cursed herself as she tried to stare ahead at the doors. Pierce would be absolutely irate if he found out, and she hoped beyond hope there wasn't a way for him to. She swallowed and looked at the camera again. Fury was waiting for her to continue but after a moment realized she was done talking and their conversation was over.
"You do have options, Miss Jackson," he said turning to face the elevator doors. She glanced over at him from the corner of her eye as he continued, "Take a moment. When you're ready, I'll turn the camera back on and we'll be on our way."
"I'm ready," she said instantly, her eyes shifting back to the elevator doors as well. He looked at her again seeing her face relaxed, as if their previous conversation hadn't happened. He side-eyed her, wondering if she was already a spy or not. Either way, he could use someone like her in his arsenal. He breathed deeply before he turned the camera back on and called for the elevator to continue on. The elevator AI confirmed the command, and they began their ascent once more.
"So, Director Fury," she began after they passed a few floors, "Why was SHIELD founded?" Fury looked at her, his eyebrow raised
"I'm starting to wonder how you came to work for SHIELD, Miss Jackson," Fury said playfully as he looked back at the elevator door.
"Pierce brought me in," she replied casually, and he leaned backward against the glass of the elevator to watch her. She remained facing forward as she continued, "he told me this would be where I would spend most of my time from now on, but he never really told me much about it." He suspected that was the truth.
"You're not going to those meetings today," Fury said after a moment. She turned to face him, confusion visible on her face as he continued, "Apparently you need a history lesson. Lesson one: SHIELD was founded on an idea. Protection. We are here to protect anyone who needs protecting. It stemmed from a WWII alliance called the S.S.R.—"
"The Strategic Scientific Reserve, right?" she asked. Fury's brows raised.
"You need the history lesson or not, Miss Jackson?" he countered playfully.
"I—" she paused, "It just sounded right?" Fury sighed looking back at the elevator floor counter. They were only a few floors away from his.
"Yeah, well it was," he said, "They fought and destroyed Hydra in the War and afterward created SHIELD in honor of Captain America's sacrifice—"
"His sacrifice?" she asked as the elevator dinged, indicating their arrival at the 41st floor. "But I thought he was alive?"
The doors opened but he turned fully to stare at her.
"Jackson, you live under a rock?" Fury asked. The doors began to close, and she stepped into their path.
"My memory is a bit," she started, but she paused trying to find the right word. After a moment she continued, "fuzzy, sometimes."
"Well, sounds like we have a lot to un-fuzz, then," he said, stepping past her and through the doors.
She stood in the door for a few moments, hesitating on her next move. Pierce would not be happy with her if she stayed with Fury. Sure, Fury was her mission, but Pierce had multiple meetings that he insisted she stand in for and she could only avoid his wrath for so long. Her jaw clenched in thought as she looked to the ground. Fury noticed her lack of footsteps behind him and turned to face her.
"We don't have all day, Jackson," he said, and she jumped as he pulled her from her thoughts.
"I don't think I shou—" she began, starting to step back into the elevator.
"I'll handle it, Jackson," he said, "now get off that elevator and follow me."
She nodded slowly and followed after him. He led her to his office where he promptly picked up the phone, she assumed to call Pierce. As he started to dial, the cell phone from Pierce that she kept on her buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw a message from the man.
'You're late. Where are you?'
'On assignment,' she responded quickly and tucked the phone back into her pocket before Fury could notice.
"This is Fury. Give me Pierce," Fury said, looking at her. He waited several moments before she heard Pierce's voice on the other end of the line.
"Nick! What do I—" Pierce spoke loudly into the phone and Fury backed the receiver away from his ear.
"I'm taking your assistant for the day," Fury interrupted, "We've been having some enthralling conversations in the elevator. I decided I wanted to show her around SHIELD and get her up to speed with who we are since I've become acutely aware you're not doing that with her."
"It's unlike you to take such an interest in someone Nick," Pierce said. He continued on in a teasing tone that caused Anya to bristle, "Maybe you're just getting lonely in your age. However, I'm afraid today just isn't going to work out—"
"Sure, it is," Fury said, making one final quip, "I'm sure you'll manage one day without her."
Anya's body tensed as she watched Fury hang up on Pierce. Twenty floors above, she imagined the red headed Secretary of Defense fuming as he stared at his phone. She shivered at the thought of him potentially taking his anger out on her. Her fear of the man was almost equal to her resentment of him. Almost.
A moment later her pocket vibrated again. Her hand flinched, beginning to reach instinctually for the piece of modern technology. She stopped herself almost instantly and left it in her pocket. She moved to the chair across from Fury and sat down, giving him her full attention.
"Alright, Miss Jackson," Fury said sitting down as well as he began but she stopped him.
"Annie," she said, her voice soft, "I've always wanted to have a friend to call me, Annie."
"Are we friends?" Fury asked, raising his eyebrow.
"I think I could use one," she said with what appeared to be a sincere smile, "The meatball sandwich really convinced me." Fury chortled.
"Alright then, Annie," he said with a grin, "Let's start from the top."
Fury, Anya quickly realized, was full of knowledge of SHIELD—a note that she realized in retrospect shouldn't have surprised her, after all, he was the Director of SHIELD—and she took the opportunity to absorb all the information he offered and ask as many questions about SHIELD and even Hydra as she could.
Fury, on the other hand, was hardly ever one to have the patience to teach people except on the extremely rare occasion, but Anya had quickly become one. She was an exceptionally fast learner. She was incredibly intelligent, and he had expected her questions to turn toward certain people or missions and was pleasantly surprised when she wanted to know more about SHIELD and Hydra themselves. Surprised, and suspicious.
She had additionally let slip while sitting across from him that her memory wasn't just fuzzy, rather she had virtually no memory at all. The conversation had immediately continued onto other subjects, but Fury couldn't help but wonder if she was telling him such intimate and important details on purpose. He was almost willing to bet his one good eye she was, and it only made him even more curious of her intentions.
When he had mentioned on the elevator ride up that she had options, it was as if he had triggered something in the woman. Up until then she had for the most part been quiet and reserved, but afterwards she barely remained quiet long enough to get answers to her questions. More often than not, one question of hers led into several others.
B y the early afternoon, he was preparing to take her down to see Project Insight—something he himself had pushed the World Security Council for but after the Lemurian Star hijacking and the bad feeling he had in his gut, he wasn't sure if it would or should be ready to launch in a couple days' time. He was genuinely interested in seeing her reaction over the project.
Fury was watching Annie with a grin as she looked over her handwritten notes. Somewhere along the way she had asked him for a notepad and had started writing swiftly on it. As she held up one of the top pages to read a page beneath, he caught himself curious of her writing. It was sprawling Latin script mixed with Cyrillic symbols.
"How many languages do you speak, Annie," he asked, and she looked up at him slightly confused. Her brows furrowed as she thought on it.
"I think three, more or less," she said, "English, German and Serbian."
"Interesting mix," he said, "I noticed your notes."
"I learned them mostly out of necessity," she replied quickly. She handed the note pad over to him as well, "I don't always realize I swap between the languages."
He began looking over her notes, but they were complete gibberish. He looked over several pages and realized none of it was seemingly coherent—her notes were written in code. He opened his mouth to ask her about it when Steve Rogers came barreling through the door.
"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" Steve asked annoyed as he walked up behind Anya. She bristled with familiarity of the voice but refused to turn. Something in her screamed for her to do it—to turn to look at him—but just as loudly something else told her, 'don't you dare'.
"I didn't lie," Fury said, looking at the man as he entered. Although Fury noticed the uncomfortable reaction Annie had to Steve's voice, he said nothing of it. Fury could ask her about it another time, but Steve wanted answers, so he continued, "Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours."
"Which you didn't feel obliged to share," Steve said standing beside her, his eyes focused on Fury.
"I'm not obliged to do anything," Fury said. He held his hand up as he looked at Anya, then to Steve; bouncing his hand back and forth between the two as he introduced them, "Steve, this is Annie. Annie, this is Steve."
"Captain Rogers," Anya said standing and turning to shake his hand. His entire body tensed as he stared at her his mouth opening as his jaw dropped.
"Maggie?" he asked, and she took her hand back as if the name had burned her. He looked her up and down before a smile fell on his lips, "Maggie, you're—"
"Sorry you have the wrong person," she said interrupting him. She stuck her hand out once more, a smile returning to her face, "My name's Annie Jackson. I work for Secretary Pierce."
"Under Pierce," Fury corrected, "You work for SHIELD."
"Right," she said looking briefly at Fury before her gaze returned to Steve, "I work under Pierce."
"Sorry, I'm Steve," he said taking her hand, but his eyes wouldn't leave hers. They shook hands and as she went to move hers away, Steve held on. After another couple of moments, he sighed and released her hand as he continued, "There was a girl I knew growing up. She was like a sister to me.
"Her name was Margaret Hargrove, but those of us who were close to her always called her Maggie. She joined the ANC in the War and was stationed in London for a while. Eventually I was able to pull some strings and got her transferred to my, well… I had a traveling show I had for a bit to sell war bonds... When we formed the Howling Commandos, Maggie was at my side until she," Steve trailed off for a moment and released her hand. He sighed, rubbing the back of his head as he briefly continued on, "Your resemblance to her is just uncanny."
Anya nodded as she listened along and found her thoughts drifting back to her hazy past. Every part of what he mentioned to her sounded familiar, like a strange case of déjà vu. She looked over Steve curiously. Without a doubt he was familiar to her as well. Anya had plenty of questions for him, but she ignored her curiosity and turned to Fury.
"I can leave so the two of you can discuss Cap's previous mission if you'd like—" she said starting to head toward the door.
"Sit down and enjoy the show, Miss Jackson," Fury said, "Steve thinks he's going to tell me how to do my job." Anya sat down slowly in a position where she could watch between Steve and Fury. Steve's jaw clenched, his eyes once again returning to Fury.
"Those hostages could have died, Nick," he said leaning against the table.
Anya couldn't help but stare at Steve, curiosity in her eyes. She could try and deny it all day, but there was something inherently familiar about the man standing next to her. She couldn't shake the feeling and it was making it incredibly difficult to take her eyes off him. Fury sat forward in his chair, turning to Steve.
"I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen," Fury said leaning towards Steve.
"Soldiers trust each other. That's what makes it an army," Steve countered, standing up straight again, "Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns."
"Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye," he said standing.
Anya peeled her eyes away from Steve and looked once again at Fury, tilting her head as she looked at the scar beneath his eye patch. His singular good eye met hers before he looked back at Steve and sighed.
"Look," Fury began again his tone softer than a moment before, "I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything."
"I can't lead a mission when the people I'm leading have missions of their own," Steve argued back immediately.
"It's called compartmentalization," Fury retorted, annoyance clear in his voice, "Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all."
"Except you," Steve said annoyed as he pointed at Fury.
"You're wrong about me," Fury said standing up straight, "I do share. I'm nice like that."
"I," Anya said quietly beside Steve, "can confirm that to some degree. There has been quite a bit of cordial sharing today."
"At least one of us gets that privilege," Steve said meeting her gaze.
"I was told I've been too complacent," she stated, and Steve's eyebrow raised in curiosity. She sighed as she continued, "I didn't know much about SHIELD before Fury started telling me more about it today. In which I was informed that I don't ask enough questions."
"Didn't," Fury stated, "You asked plenty since then."
"Probably too many," she stated with an apologetic smile to Fury.
"No such thing," Steve said watching her intently. She looked back at him and he saw a hint of curiosity.
"Well then," she began, "If you don't mind me asking—although I'm aware this may be in poor taste—what happened to your friend?"
"Maggie?" he asked in surprise.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly, "I was just—"
"It's okay," he said stopping her. He looked over her again then sighed as he continued, "I don't really know. When I came out of the ice, they told me she died on an AWOL mission. She was pretty devastated when we lost Bucky—"
Steve paused as he gauged her reaction, taking notice of her wince before he continued slowly, "—They were meant to get married after the war, but we lost him on a mission. She watched him fall from the train, before she completed her part of the mission, but she hated the idea of not bringing him home. I heard she went searching for him later, but she never returned."
Fury, too, was watching Annie and noticed her hands—which had been sitting in her lap—were in white knuckle fists and her eyes seemed to lose focus on Steve as he spoke. Steve noticed her eyes and as he stopped talking, she blinked rapidly, looking away from him.
"Well, if story time is over," Fury said walking toward his door, trying to help ease the discomfort in the room, "I have something big for show-and-tell."
Anya heard Steve move beside her and as she turned to start following Fury, she saw Steve standing between the two. She looked at him, her vision blurred. Steve lifted his hand to her face and she felt the soft face tissue against her skin, blotting up the tears she didn't realize were falling. After a moment he reached toward the tissue box on Fury's desk and handed her another one.
"I have allergies," she lied quietly as she took the tissue and blotted her eyes, "There must be something in the air."
"They catch me off guard sometimes too," Steve responded with a nod. She stared at him, both of them knowing easily the other was lying.
She blotted her eyes once more before throwing the tissue away and chasing after Fury. Steve turned and watched her go, his eyes narrowed. She had to be Maggie Hargrove. He didn't know how she was there, or why she was so hellbent on denying it, but she was going to have to give him solid proof that she was anyone besides his Maggie. And even if she was able to, he wasn't sure he would believe it.