Jane closed the door to her room and leaned against it, letting her eyes fall shut. Her watch read 11:48 p.m. and she knew everyone would be heading to bed soon, if they hadn't already. Rubbing her eyes she wandered across the floor of her room and flopped onto her bed, one leg dangling off the side.
She knew she should get to sleep soon, but she could tell that wouldn't happen anytime soon. As exhausted as she was, she knew sleep would be as difficult to achieve as always. Instead, the events of the day ran continuously through her head. Deciding she should at least give a good night's rest a shot, she moved to the other side of the room to grab a pair of pajamas and put her hair up in a bun.
While changing her top she caught a glance of herself in the mirror and paused to look at the metal plates running down her spine. Most of the time she forgot they were even there, but looking at them now, they seemed extraordinarily striking and eerie. They were so menacing and abrasive looking that she couldn't help wondering what she would've done if Bucky's situation was hers; if she had found out she was a weapon. Jane quickly shook her head, pushing the thought from her mind and pulled the tank top over her head, followed by the softest sweatshirt she had.
After their attempts at making sense of Coulson's files, and having no success, Jane and Bucky had decided a change of pace was in order for the day. Jane had come to find the reason May had wanted to see her was because she had decided if Jane was going to be a part of the team, she needed to at least have a basic understanding of hand to hand combat. Even if she wasn't going to be a field agent, self-defense skills would be useful to know if the need ever arose.
Bucky had wanted to be a good sport about it, agreeing to join in despite Jane's offers to let him sit this one out. Though it wasn't long before they had to stop. The repetitive motions reminiscent of fighting soon triggered memories for Bucky, some familiar, and some new. Jane hadn't quite expected it to happen so soon, but she figured he must have taken her words from earlier to heart.
It took Jane a good half an hour to calm Bucky back down to talk to her, but even then, she could tell he wasn't going to be interested in doing much else the rest of the day. She hated to see the far away, disheartened look in his eyes as he struggled to process the things he was remembering, but she also knew it was necessary for him to make progress, and the sooner the better.
After a bit of coaxing and pleading, Bucky finally agreed to tell Jane about the memories that were resurfacing. None of it had been anything that was going to help Coulson and his team, but Jane found it insightful in understanding what Bucky was dealing with. He was recalling a mission where he had been sent to assassinate a foreign diplomat, ultimately choking him to death with his metal arm.
They talked for a long while after that, though the conversation tended to be fairly one sided with Jane doing the majority of the talking. Bucky eventually came out of it a bit, but she made sure the rest of the day was pretty slow paced after that, and made sure he got to bed early.
Jane sat back down on her bed again, rubbing her temples where a slight headache had started to form. She fell onto her back and sighed deeply. There was a long road ahead and she really did need to sleep. But her mind simply would not give her peace and quiet. After several minutes of laying restlessly in the dark her thoughts wandered to the files they had been combing through earlier that morning. She wasn't sure if it was her past of being a research analyst, or if it was just paranoia, but she couldn't resist the feeling that there was an answer sitting there in plain sight.
The photos and documents swirled in her head, until she became fixated on one photo in particular. Something seemed off about it and after a few moments the reason why finally struck her. Her eyes flicked open, seeing nothing but the darkness of the room. Quickly she pulled the covers off and swung her legs around so her feet were touching the ground. Cautiously feeling around in the dark she made her way to the doorway and slowly pulled it open making sure it didn't make noise. Once in the dimly lit hallway she tiptoed past Bucky's room which she had requested be next to hers, and past the other team members' rooms, careful to stay silent as she passed each one.
The ship was silent, aside from the low humming that let her know they were in the air—which also meant at least May was still awake. Nimbly she padded through the aircraft until she arrived at the room she was looking for and slipped inside. Jane flipped the light switch and blinked several times waiting for her eyes to adjust. Coulson's office looked just as it had before, and she quickly scanned the room looking for the files. Not seeing them right away she proceeded to Coulson's desk, and noiselessly opening drawers until finally finding what she was looking for.
Grabbing the stack of files from the drawer she thumbed through them until she found the one she needed and opened it. Sifting through the papers she pulled aside the image that had been bugging her and found her suspicions had been right. Excitement coursing through her body at her discovery she quickly packed the files back up and backtracked to her room, files in hand. She had the gut feeling that sneaking around with the files and keeping them in her room would be frowned upon, but she had to know if her theory had any merit to it.
Once back in the safety of her room she let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding in. Instantly she began going to work pinning up different photos and documents onto the wall of her room where because of the way the room was laid out, wouldn't be seen even if someone was standing at her doorway.
The image that had first peaked her curiosity was one of a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent known to be a HYDRA operative. He had since been captured and executed, however the photo was from earlier when he was giving a press conference in D.C. The man was standing behind a podium and looked to be gesturing with his hands. On the underside of his wrist Jane had spotted what looked to be a tattoo, though she couldn't tell what exactly it was. She then cross referenced it with earlier and later images and as she had expected, the inking was never consistent. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn't.
Eagerly she hurried to retrieve her laptop from under her bed. She had never used it much, but at the moment she was extremely thankful that Skye had shown her how to log in to the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. After several attempts to find the correct keywords she finally found the video from which the image was taken. Pausing it she zoomed in and was able to distinguish that the markings on his wrist were in the shape of a crescent moon overlapped by a circle.
Excitedly she went back to putting photos and documents on her wall, linking them together. Each time she found a connection it led her to another and before she knew it the papers on her wall began to look like wallpaper.
Jane was awakened by a knocking on her door and the sound of Bucky calling her name. "Jay? You in there?" He said, his voice muffled through the door. "If you don't answer me I'm coming in there." Bucky could see the light filtering out under the door so he knew she was in there. What he didn't understand was why she wasn't answering him. Usually she was up long before he was, and she was the one pounding on his door telling him not to be late for team meeting.
Jane opened her eyes groggily, seeing Bucky peering around the doorway. She found she had fallen asleep on the floor, leaning against the wall, and now she felt stiff and her neck ached. As her mind struggled to return to consciousness she saw all the work she had done on her wall and she suddenly understood why she was on her floor. Hurriedly she tried to tell Bucky not to come in, not wanting him to see the files everywhere, but he was already rushing in, a concerned look on his face.
"Jay! What are you doing? Are you okay, you weren't answering me?" He said, hurrying to her side.
She waved him off, still squinting in the bright lights. "It's nothing I'm fine." He tried to help her up but she ignored his offer and stood up herself, groaning at her stiff muscles. At the same moment Bucky's attention was caught by the papers scattered around the room and all over the wall
"Wha— What is all of this?" He stammered, looking back to Jane who was rubbing the bridge of her nose. "What did you— Did you do this all last night?"
May then appeared at the doorway, stepping into the room. "Meeting in five, are you—" She hesitated mid-sentence, her eyes having caught a glimpse of what Bucky was staring at in disbelief. "What in the..." She mumbled.
Jane just let out a long sigh and let her hands fall to her sides. "Look I know I shouldn't have taken the files but it's not as weird as it looks, I think I might have—"
"It's not me you have to answer to." May said, cutting her off. "You can tell Coulson whatever it is that you found after team meeting. Right now we need to go." She continued, ushering Bucky out of the room where they waited in the hallway for Jane to join them after changing.
"Phil, I believe Jane has a matter to discuss with you." May said quietly to Coulson as the team exited his office, the meeting having wrapped up. "Jane." She said, giving the floor to the sleep deprived girl. Jane simply nodded in acknowledgement and then proceeded to walk out of the room, dragging Bucky along behind her.
Coulson looked to May, confused, and was met only with a sigh and a nod motioning to follow the pair. Arriving at Jane's room, the four filed in and Jane waited for Coulson's shock to hit.
"So that's what you were doing in my office last night." He said calmly, breaking the silence.
"I—Wait what?" Jane questioned, having not expected him to know about that.
Coulson's mouth turned up in a grin. "I keep a lot of valuable things in my office, you don't think I would neglect to have security on it do you?"
"I—uh—I didn't realize." Jane stammered, now feeling embarrassed. She began wondering how ridiculous she must have looked on tape, thinking she was being so sneaky. "Why didn't you stop me?"
He shrugged, then answered, "I figured you must've had a good reason, and considering we've got plenty of backups I didn't see the harm in it." Motioning to the wall he added, "Looks like I was right to let you do your thing."
Bucky stood in the back, trying to suppress a smile. He found it entertaining to see Jane stumbling over her words, her cheeks growing pink from embarrassment. She liked to put on the front that she always had everything under control, but he knew better. All you had to do was catch her off guard and you'd find she was just as human as everyone else. He filed this observation away in his mind, figuring it would probably come in handy sometime in the future.
"So, are you going to explain to us what all of this is for?" Coulson asked.
Jane forced herself to snap back to reality, still flustered from before. "Right, well the first thing to start it was this image here." She said, pointing to the picture in the middle of the collage. "See this tattoo here?" She asked, indicating the small moon image.
"Lots of agents have tattoos, what's so special about this one?" May asked, her arms crossed over her chest.
"That's just it." Jane answered getting excited. "I cross referenced it with other photos I had of him and it's not always there. It's not in fact a tattoo at all, but rather an entrance stamp to The Eclipse. It's an international night club with several locations around the globe, including one in D.C." She directed their attention to a reproduction of the moon symbol she had drawn on the back of one of the papers. "I once did a write up on the place before S.H.I.E.L.D. went down, that's why I recognized it."
"So the man enjoys the night life. I'm not sure I see how that's pertinent." Coulson commented.
"You see how his stamp is in blue ink?" Jane continued, pointing again to the man's wrist. "The Eclipse only ever uses black or purple ink on their stamps. Black is for regular admittance, and Purple signifies VIP which gives you access to the back rooms. They do not, however, in any of their facilities use blue ink." Coulson squinted, trying to understand what Jane was getting at. "I think HYDRA was using the club as a cover, and the ink colors were their code."
Coulson raised an eyebrow skeptically. "So let me get this straight, because one known HYDRA informant has a different colored club stamp you automatically conclude that the biggest international terrorist group of the last century has been operating out of the back door of a night club?" He asked, unconvinced.
"Not just one." She answered eagerly. Quickly she moved to retrieve her laptop from where it was charging next to the wall. Walking back towards the group she pulled up the numerous tabs she'd bookmarked.
"I started with the agents closest to our guy here, and I could only get through a few, but already I found several others who at one point or another could be seen with the same stamp—all of them in blue ink." Jane said, flipping through the other pictures she had collected.
Coulson looked thoughtful and after a minute nodded slightly. "It might be a long shot, but I don't see anything that says this isn't a valid lead. Keep working with this and let me know when you've got something solid." After finishing his statement, Coulson turned towards the door and walked out without another word, May trailing after him.
Jane turned to Bucky and let out a deep sigh. "Well I think that went well." She mumbled, running her hand across her forehead.
"You're hilarious when you're flustered." He said with a smile. Jane replied with a roll of her eyes.