Chapter 15- Trust Issues and Project Insight
The Triskelion, where S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters was in Washington D.C. had always impressed Yelizaveta. But today the place didn't have much of the "Wow!" factor it had always had when she first saw it after a mission. To say Yelizaveta and Steve was angry at Nick Fury for keeping secrets from them was putting it mildly. It wasn't like when Fury had first recruited her for S.H.I.E.L.D. when she was 10. Without a word Yelizaveta and Steve made their way to Fury's office, which was on the top floor.
"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" Steve asked, glowering at Fury with barely-concealed rage.
"I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours and Agent Markova's," Fury said a little too calmly for Yelizaveta's liking.
"Which you didn't feel obliged to share," Steve said.
"He's right, Director. It is still a lie if you don't say anything," Yelizaveta said, unable to keep the frost out of her own voice.
"I'm not obliged to do anything," Fury said.
"Those hostages could have died, Nick," Steve said, the anger gone from his voice.
"I sent the greatest soldier and assassin in history to make sure that didn't happen," Fury said, turning to face them as he folded his hands on his desk.
"Soldiers trust each other. That's what makes an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns," Steve said, stiffly.
"I wish I could say the same for assassins, but the Red Room in Russia was not big on telling us to trust each other as your supposed friend could be trying to kill you," Yelizaveta said, wincing slightly at the memory of the time a five-year-old tried to kill her in what amounted to a training exercise and she still had the knife wound in her side. Fury stood, bracing his hands on his desk.
"Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye. Look, I didn't want you or Markova doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything," Fury said.
"I can't lead a mission with just a fourteen-year-old girl, when the people I'm leading have missions of their own. No offence," Steve said as an aside to Yelizaveta.
"None taken," Yelizaveta said.
"It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets, because nobody knows them all," Fury said.
"Except you," Steve said. Fury was silent for a few moments.
"You and Yelizaveta are wrong about me. I do share. I'm nice like that," Fury said in a tight voice.
"Then start sharing or we start walking. I'm a Russian spy. I know how to disappear and S.H.I.E.L.D. would never find me," Yelizaveta said just as stiffly.
"Okay then. Come this way," Fury said as he led them to his private elevator. "Insight bay," Fury said crisply to the elevator.
"Captain Rogers and Agent Markova does not have clearance for Project Insight," a computerized voice said.
"Director override. Fury, Nicholas J," Fury said.
"Confirmed," the computer said and the door slid shut and they started to move.
"You know, they used to play music," Steve said as they went down and he looked around at the elevator they were in.
"Yeah, but somebody probably complained. Nobody likes elevator music," Yelizaveta said dryly.
"Yeah. My grandfather operated one of these things for 40 years. Granddad worked in a nice building. Got good tips. He'd walk home every night, a roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He'd say "Hi." People would say "Hi" back. Time went on, the neighborhood got rougher. He'd say "Hi." They'd say "Keep on steppin.' " Granddad got to gripping that lunch bag a little tighter," Fury said.
"Did he ever get mugged?" Steve asked. Fury chuckled.
"Every week some punk would say, "What's in the bag?" Fury said/
"What would he do?" Yelizaveta asked.
"He'd show 'em. Bunch of crumpled ones and a loaded .22 Magnum. Yeah, Granddad loved people. But he didn't trust 'em very much," Fury said.
"Well, something to be said for that as it's not paranoia if someone is really out to get you," Yelizaveta said as they walked to the window Fury was standing by and both Yelizaveta and Steve's mouths nearly dropped at the sight of what looked like three helicarriers.
"Yeah, I know. They're a little bit bigger than a .22," Fury said as she and Steve noticed the guns on the sides.
"Whoa and Rumlow called me a walking weapons arsenal," Yelizaveta said as her blue eyes swept over all the helicarriers as fighter jets were being hoisted onto them.
"This is Project Insight. Three next-generation helicarriers synched to a network of targeting satellites," Fury said as they walked in the launching pad area.
"Launched from the Lemurian Star," Steve said.
"Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down. Continuous sub-orbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines," Fury said, sounding like a proud parent over the helicarriers.
"Stark?" Steve and Yelizaveta both asked as they looked up at the engines being put in.
"Uh, he had a few suggestions once he got an up-close look at our old turbines. These new long-range precision guns can eliminate a 1,000 hostiles a minute," Fury said, causing the blood to drain out of Yelizaveta's face. Looking over at Steve, the look on his face said, he felt the same way she did; sick at the thought of what could happen with this new project. "The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."
"I thought America was different than the Russia I left. I thought the punishment usually came after the crime," Yelizaveta said quietly.
"She has a point, Nick," Steve said.
"We can't afford to wait that long," Fury said.
"Who's "we?" Steve asked.
"After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once, we're way ahead of the curve," Fury said, nodding his head and Steve nodded it in agreement.
"By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection," Steve said.
"You know, I read those SSR files. "Greatest Generation?" You guys did some nasty stuff," Fury said, bringing up what S.H.I.E.L.D. had been during the second World Wat. Yelizaveta had read the same papers and had seen some disparities between what the SSR had been and what S.H.I.E.L.D. was now. The most enjoyable reading had been the battles that Steve had gone on with his friend Bucky Barnes and the Howling Commandoes.
"Yeah. We compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so that people could be free. This isn't freedom. This is fear," Steve said with a slight edge in his voice as he pointed at one of the helicarriers.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. And it's getting darn near past time for you and Markova to get with the program, Cap," Fury said, a threat in his tone.
"As far as me and Liz are concerned, don't hold your breath," Steve said as Yelizaveta and Steve walked away.