Chapter 7 - Chordata

National Mall, Washington D.C.

December 1, 2013

Mal had a few seconds to decide how much to tell him.

On the one hand, she was fairly certain she could explain her entire project and he wouldn't completely grasp what she was trying to do. As smart as he was, he wasn't a biochemist. He'd probably have trouble explaining it back to her.

On the other, Steve was the only person Mal knew at S.H.I.E.L.D. with a direct line of communication to the director. She'd only met Fury in person once and in the few moments it took for him to shake her hand, she'd gotten the impression that he saw much more with one eye than most people did with two. The last thing she wanted was Steve turning Fury's eye on her project or worse: the unauthorized research she did on her own biology.

Her few seconds were up. Steve was waiting expectantly.

"Well, my project is called Salamander." Mal rolled her eyes. She would always hate the name. "I guess it's pretty cool. It kind of sounds like we're trying to bioengineer a dragon or something."

He chuckled. "Are you?"

"Pft, I wish. That'd be easier. No, I'm trying to come up with a regenerative drug."

Steve frowned and cocked his head. "I thought you weren't making a super-soldier serum."

"I'm not. Your serum made you strong. I'm trying to make people resilient. Sure, super-soldiers are less likely to be mortally wounded, but you're literally the only super-soldier in the world. And creating more is dangerous and massively unethical."

"What?"

Mal threw her hands out in a placating gesture. "I don't mean to offend you or say anything bad about Dr. Erskine. I have a lot of respect for him. But Project Rebirth could have easily been a disaster."

He crossed his arms. "You said it was a biological marvel."

She snorted, "Yeah, it was a biological marvel in that you didn't all die horribly. Just think of Dr. Banner. Occasionally turning into the Hulk is getting off easy. There are hundreds of undocumented cases of similar experiments where people died."

"I knew the risk."

"That doesn't change the fact that it was crazy. Nowadays, you can't even begin human trials without permission from every superior and their mother and at least three hundred successful non-human trials."

"It was my decision." He had that stubborn glint in his eye Mal was beginning to recognize as his 'fight me' look.

Mal sighed, shifting on the bench to look him in the eye. "Steve, I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm just telling you that that isn't how it's done anymore. And it's resulted in a lot fewer deaths, but the tradeoff is that we don't have any super-soldiers."

He begrudgingly uncrossed his arms. She hoped she hadn't irreparably sabotaged their relationship, but Steve didn't seem like the kind of person to hold a grudge.

"Alright."

She stifled a sigh of relief. "So, my project is dedicated to extending agents' active years. More than half of field agents' retirements are involuntary. They sustain career-ending injuries in the line of duty and the most S.H.I.E.L.D. can do for them is give them some pencils to push, something they're grossly overqualified for. These people still have all of the training required to be effective agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but they're missing limbs or they're paralyzed or whatever. In fact, S.H.I.E.L.D. is losing money training a surplus of recruits to fill the ranks of the wounded—about 1.2 billion dollars a year on field training alone."

He pressed his lips together, clearly trying to hide a smile. "Are you trying to convince me to fund your project?"

Mal laughed. "Sorry, this is a stripped down version of my pitch to the head of my department. I can get hardcore deep into some numbers if you're interested."

"I'll pass."

"Good call."

"So, missing limbs? What, are you trying to regrow arms and legs?" laughed Steve.

She didn't.

He quickly sobered. "That sounds like something out of science fiction."

That was rich coming from a super-soldier. Mal rolled her eyes. "Need I remind you that you were a 90-pound asthmatic before Dr. Erskine and Howard Stark pumped you full of untested serums and radiation? In 1943?"

He thought about that before conceding a nod. "Point taken. But…"

"It can absolutely be done," she declared firmly. "I mean, humans already have some regenerative capabilities—children can regrow fingertips, our liver can regenerate from less than 25% of its full size. Of course, we don't have nearly the same abilities as salamanders or hydra."

"Hydra?"

"Oh, not the monster from Greek mythology—or the Nazi organization," she added when he didn't seem comforted. "It's an organism in phylum Cnidaria—same phylum as jellyfish and corals—class Hydrozoa. Its regeneration is called morphallaxis; meaning… if you cut a hydra in half, it would create two entirely new hydra."

"Cut off one head and two more will take its place," murmured Steve.

She nodded. "Well, the class gets its name from the mythology. Now, order Urodela—salamanders, in layman's terms—their method of regeneration is a little different. It's called epimorphosis, which is essentially limb regeneration after a traumatic amputation."

He didn't need her to make the connection. "Project Salamander," he concluded.

"Got it in one."

He looked like he still had a thousand questions. "This might sound stupid, but humans aren't salamanders. We don't have that capability."

She smiled. "'Salamander' is just the name. The goal is regeneration. Now, how we get there…" Her smile faded. There was a long pause. When ten seconds passed, Steve gently prodded her arm. Mal shook herself out of her thoughts and sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said exhaustedly, rubbing her forehead.

"Take your time."

Her smile felt more like a grimace. "I've been stumped with my research for the pastmonth, which is the longest dry spell I've ever had ever. I feel like I'm looking for a needle in a haystack. No, you know, it's more like looking for a specific piece of hay in a haystack. And I know I have to be patient—I mean, it took Mary-Claire King sixteen years to find BRCA1 and that was with, like, a hundred samples to cross-reference—but it's still incredibly frustrating."

His eyes were glazed over when he replied, "Uh-huh."

Mal winced. "Sorry."

Steve waved a hand at her. "You just lost me for a second."

Mal interlaced her fingers and tightened her grip until her knuckles were bone white. "I know it can be done," she ground out. "I know it. But there are a few steps along the way that seem insurmountable right now."

"What do you mean?"

She struggled to explain. "…I'm in a very, very long step right now. All I'm doing, every single day, is testing… and failing. And I don't see any way around it, which is the most frustrating part, because it just feels like I'm not even working. I'm not innovating, I'm just… slogging. I hate slogging."

He pressed his lips together, lowering his eyebrows in thought. Mal wasn't sure what kind of response she thought he'd give, though she was definitely sure it wouldn't be useful to her, but she wanted to hear it anyway.

"That sucks," he finally declared.

The words were so awkward coming out of his mouth that she busted up laughing. "Did I use that correctly?" he asked dryly over her laughter.

When Mal finally regained control of herself, she assured him, "You did, actually. And you should use that if you ever have to go to a funeral. Works for all occasions."

"Oh, really?"

"Of course."

"You couldn't possibly be steering me wrong."

"Please, Steve."

Sobering, he said, "I wish I had something profound to say that would help you out."

Steve seemed genuinely troubled by the fact that he couldn't help her. She was inordinately touched by his concern. Once again, Mal was grateful to know the man. Had anyone ever been so deeply good-hearted?

She smiled softly. "I'm just grateful that you sat there and listened to me babble."

He waved her off. "You weren't babbling."

Mal gave him an incredulous look. "Steve, my own mother says I babble like a brook."

He laughed. "Regardless, what you're doing is interesting… and incredible." He furrowed his brow in thought. "And it doesn't have to be limited to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, does it? There must be hundreds of thousands of people that could benefit from your research."

Mal hoped so. Unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. had a tendency to hoard its R&D. Of course, she could see the merits of keeping sensitive tech secret, like Fitzsimmons' Night-Night Gun, but it seemed like such a waste when there were so many places it could do more good. The Night-Night Gun could be a new replacement for police firearms, or the bullets themselves could be reworked to create non-opioid anesthetics.

But it would never happen. S.H.I.E.L.D. liked to hold all of the cards it could get its hands on. Half the reason S.H.I.E.L.D. trained its own researchers at SciTech was to keep information within the family, so to speak. By the time she realized that fact, she was halfway through her four years at the academy.

Still, she had limits. Mal wasn't going to let her potentially revolutionary project be hidden away, like some princess in a tower. It would be the people's project.

Instead of saying all of this, however, she told him, "Once we have something more definitive than a concept, I'm hoping I'll be able to petition for a wider release."

"You will."

She chuckled. "You're very sure of that, are you?"

Steve nodded, full of confidence. "I am. And so are you." When she cocked her head in confusion, he smiled. "You seemed pretty confident about winning that bet of ours."

She grinned. "Well, I just want to prove that you don't have to use violence to save the world."

Which was what he literally did for a living. Nice one, dumbass. She quickly backpedaled. "Not that what you're doing is bad—thrilling heroics or whatever—although, I don't agree with the violent approach—"

Steve cut her off, "I understand."

Then, with earnest eyes—damn those eyes, she thought, feeling even guiltier—he told her, "Mal, I'd rather be out of a job than feel like I have to fight, but for now I'll do what I know works."

She felt rather like a scolded child. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

But she was still a little chagrined from sticking her foot in her mouth. He sighed, running his hand through his hair. Softly, he said, "For what it's worth, I hope you win our bet."

She looked at Steve. His eyes were still earnest. And he didn't say something profound to help her out. But she was beginning to realize that Steve didn't really say profound things; he didn't have to. Steve helped her by believing in her just as she was beginning to lose faith in herself.

Mal grinned so widely her cheeks hurt. "Captain, it's worth the whole damn world."

The Triskelion, Washington D.C.

December 2, 2013

Despite the lovely chat she'd had with Steve the day before, Mal was feeling a bit beaten down. Another day passed her by without a single trace of her elusive X-gene. She was beginning to believe her task was impossible.

She smacked her head against her desk and immediately regretted it.

"Ouch!"

She rubbed her forehead, frowning. The throbbing stopped almost immediately, but it annoyed her nonetheless. She had always wished her mutation was more like Logan's. He seemed to have been gifted with a measure of pain suppression as well as an enhanced healing factor.

Once, when she was sixteen, she was out for a walk in the woods around the mansion when she ran across a feral dog. Foolishly, she reached out her hand to it, murmuring soothing words to calm it down. And predictably, it clamped down on her with an iron grip and tore into her hand so fiercely that it ripped off half of her pinky finger. The only thing that finally startled it away was her unbridled shriek of pain; so loud that a whole mile away, Scott Summers heard her and came to her rescue.

By contrast, she'd seen a three-ton SUV fall on top of Logan as he was working on it on three separate occasions. Each time, the only sound he emitted was a long-suffering sigh.

(Incidentally, the amputation incident was the first time she learned that she could regenerate her extremities. However, it wasn't an instantaneous process and it was as painful as the moment she lost her finger. The six hours it took to completely regrow her finger were the longest of her life.)

Mal leaned back in her chair. She predicted another long night of work.

"Coffee," she muttered to herself. Caffeine didn't really do much for her, but it was a warm drink and D.C. winters were bitter cold. She stood, fishing around in her bag for her wallet.

Movement in her periphery made her look up. When she saw him standing in the doorway, she frowned and checked her watch. It was about an hour after their shifts had ended. Colt rarely stayed more than five minutes if he could help it.

"Hey, Colt. What're you still doing here? I thought you had a date with Marley."

He didn't answer right away, lost in some deep thought.

"Colt?"

He shook his head and came inside her office, shutting the door carefully behind him.

"She had to cancel, her uncle's in the hospital," he said distractedly. His eyes darted around her office—to the shelves, the corners of the room, every nook and cranny—before they landed on her.

Mal set her wallet back down at his expression. He wasn't acting at all like himself. There was no humor in his face. "What is it?"

Colton nervously rubbed his hands together. "Okay, don't freak out," he started to say, which was enough reason for Mal to freak out in and of itself. "Because it's not too big of a deal."

"Please just say what you're going to say."

"I came into work Saturday, like you asked," said Colton. "I checked all the plates and ran the numbers."

"Yeah, you told me this morning."

He shook his head. "I couldn't say everything. Esposito was there."

"What does she have to do with anything?"

"She came in on Saturday, too. I was alone in the lab most of the morning. I had to step out for an hour to take a call—Marley was freaking out about her uncle's chemo and I was trying to calm her down—and when I got back…"

"What?"

He looked away, his face troubled. "Esposito was at my computer. I think she might've tried to access the data files from Project Salamander."

Her blood ran cold. "What?" she hissed, gripping the edge of her desk. "How—"

"I don't think she got anything," he interrupted quickly. "My encryptions are rock solid and my computer didn't say she tried to copy them onto an external drive. I'm just letting you know what's up."

"What the hell." Mal slumped into her chair, exhausted. As if she needed another thing to worry about. "Why would she—"

"This isn't some podunk lab in San Francisco, Mal," he interrupted sharply. "The Triskelion is the big leagues. People are looking to win here. They'll do anything to get an edge, even if it means stealing research."

She rubbed her face before resting her forehead in her hand. "But I don't even have anything," she said, mostly to herself.

Colton was quiet. She lifted her head out of her palm. "What, Colton."

He glanced over his shoulder. The lights in the hallway were dim. No one walked by. He took a seat in front of her desk, scooching as close to the edge as he could before he leaned in.

"You… work a lot of nights," he said vaguely. She stared at him and he rushed to say, "Which is fine. But… to a lot of people, it's suspicious. Working alone… at night."

Whatever he was trying to stay was stuck to the inside of his mouth. "I don't know what you saying," she stated flatly.

"People tend to do that when they're conducting independent research," he blurted out finally. "I mean, it's laughably easy to disconnect the cameras—shit, some of the guys and I do it once a week to drink beer and play Magic: The Gathering—Mal, stop looking at me like that—"

"Ugh, you bastard; in my laboratory?" she whined, momentarily forgetting that they had more pressing issues to deal with.

"First of all, it's a shared laboratory. Second of all, that's not the point."

She knew the point. He was asking if she had any secrets that she was hiding, something that Esposito might have gotten wind of and decided to sniff out. And she did. Around a third of her research never entered Colton's computer because she only recorded it on her personal laptop.

But there was no way Esposito could know that. Maybe it was suspicious that Mal worked odd hours, but Mal was careful about her secret. She was beyond careful. In fact, she'd completely limited her research on her mutant comrades' blood to afterhours, so no one but Mal could access them.

In the end, Mal came to the same conclusion that Colt had: Esposito was only looking for a leg-up. She didn't know what she was. No one knew.

"Mal." She snapped to attention. Colt was looking at her expectantly. "Are you doing independent research?"

"No," she lied, laughing to hide how uncomfortable she was. "You know I'm stumped right now. I'm just trying to get in as many hours as I can."

His features slackened with relief. "Good," he chirped, standing suddenly. "'Cause that's a major infraction and I'd have to report you."

She snorted. "You just admitted to imbibing alcohol in a highly sensitive environment on a regular basis. Don't give me shit about the rules."

Colton grinned his shit-eating grin before holding up his keys. "Want me to give you a ride home?" he asked, jangling them to get her attention.

She ran her hand through her hair and sighed, staring down at her computer screen. "You'd better go. I'll be another hour, at least."

His smile faded. Seriously, he said, "Mal, I wouldn't actually report you if you—"

"I'm not doing independent research," she repeated without taking her eyes off of her screen. "I'm just writing an email to Krantz."

"About Esposito?"

"I'm not a complete moron," she snapped. Colton held up his hands in surrender. She rubbed her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut. He didn't deserve her temper. "Sorry. But I don't want to get her fired over what could very well be a misunderstanding. Maybe we should just talk to her…"

He rolled his eyes. "Don't bother, I've already tried. She pretended like she wasn't even here."

"Then keep an eye on her. I'll do the same."

He nodded. "You got it, boss." Before he turned to leave, Colton paused to add one final warning, "Be careful around Ash, too. Assistants report everything to their bosses. She might be your friend, but she's Esposito's assistant first."

Mal knew that. Still, she'd really come to think of Ashley as her closest friend in Washington besides Steve. It would be difficult to make their conversation topics even shallower than they already were.

"I got it, Colt," she sighed, feeling much older than her twenty-six years. "Thank you for letting me know."

He smiled. "Like I said," he reiterated, "assistants report everything to their bosses."

With a tiny wave, Colton was gone.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. It hadn't been like this when she was an intern in San Francisco. It wasn't just because she was heading her own project. No, the people were simply more competitive.

Mal wanted to scream. Why would Esposito want her data? She had to ask herself the question again, because she couldn't dismiss any possibility. Mal didn't know much about her project other than it was to develop biochemical munitions, like Simmons had. In not so many words, stem cell cultures were useless to her. So, the only reason for the theft would be to claim credit for a discovery that wasn't hers. And that was dirty and scheming and so high school.

There was nothing she wanted more than to be here, in her own office, researching her own biology. It was all she had wanted since she cracked her head on a rock while surfing as a little girl and watched her skin seal up in minutes. But now that she had everything she ever wanted, there was nothing she wanted more than to be home in Hawai'i, her mother and father tucking her into her bed, kissing the unblemished spot on her forehead and scolding her for her recklessness. Or at the mansion, constructing blanket forts with Kitty in their bedroom, giggling when Logan came pounding on their door at one in the morning. Or teasing Fitz with Jemma and watching his ears turn bright red when Jem touched his arm affectionately.

Or just with Steve, who made her want to be the best she could be.

So maybe she didn't know exactly where she wanted to be. But she knew she didn't want this.

Wiping a tear from her eye, Mal opened up her email and began a message. Not to Dr. Krantz, but to someone she knew had done all this before. He could help her.

Hello, Hank.

Edited Sept 2021