a/n: time jumpppppp also OC heavy chapterrrrr
anyway- hi! welcome to part ii. last arc was iron man, this arc is picking up a little bit before the events of the avengers. since there's a time jump, a lot has happened between the end of part i and now, including but not limited to: iron man 2 plot and a little bit of the incredible hulk plot.
i'll stop blabbing on now. this chapter was brought to you by sangria, zinc vitamins, and the 1975's latest album 'being funny in a foreign language.' enjoy :)
"Can't see the forest for the trees
behind the lids of my own eyes.
Nostalgia's cool, but it won't help me now.
A dream is good, if you don't wear it out."
- Caught in the Middle by Paramore
Breaking News: Justin Hammer Sentenced to Life in Prison After the Stark Expo Disaster
Jamie Archer was running ridiculously late.
Well, more like sprinting ridiculously late.
It was rainy, which made her trip a little more complicated since all the cabs were taken up and half the subway lines were closed due to flooding. Even having prepared for this in hindsight, Jamie left an hour early from her apartment in Lower Manhattan to make it to the edge of Harlem in time, but it didn't seem to be going her way.
When did it ever?
The reporter had to stop at an intersection as traffic whizzed by. Not having packed an umbrella on her trek across the city, she'd resorted to trading a couple bucks at some bodega for a copy of the latest Daily Bugle issue. It was kind of ironic that it just so happened to be her breaking news article on Justin Hammer that was on the front page.
It wouldn't be the first time her name was on the byline of the front page news stories. Her stories for the past year or so all had a certain element that kept people invested: the Superhuman Element, as JJ Jameson liked to call it.
After her Big Break with the Iron Man story, Jamie had gone on a roll with her photojournalist, Logan, in tow. They'd covered countless stories on different things ranging from a young girl that could climb walls, giant green monsters duking it out in Harlem, and- of course- all the stories JJ had her go cover on all things Iron Man.
But there was just one story Jamie couldn't let go of, even after that first brief interaction she had at the very beginning of her journey: the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.
And while Agent Larson and her Dad's so-called insurance Agent Phil were both ghost stories, she was able to find one line to pull on that she hoped would get her some answers.
Her first stop: Columbia University.
As soon as the crosswalk sign gave her the go-ahead, Jamie dashed across, not paying any mind to the puddles her poor boots were having to endure. Truth be told, she knew they were expensive, but another part of her was almost too happy to dirty them so she had an excuse not to wear the overpriced gift Nick had gotten her for Valentine's Day.
Speaking of...
As Jamie approached the entrance to Columbia University's Schermerhorn Hall, she slid her phone out of her pocket. She had a few messages. A handful from Margot which- from the looks of it- seemed to be her just texting a grocery list so she could get back to it. One from JJ asking if she'd seen how fast the latest Bugle issue was flying off the stands- typical. Several from Logan begging her to pick him up some calzones on her way back from Harlem. And another handful from Nick.
Nick: Hope you packed your umbrella.
Nick: Thinking dinner at the Mastro's Steakhouse later. Thoughts?
Nick: J?
Nick: Look if this is about whatever my Mom said to you last week, I'm sorry.
Jamie frowned, pausing in her stride to examine the last text Nick had sent.
Ever since they started seeing each other, Jamie was starting to find that dating Nick was strikingly different from dating Nicholas Park, son of budding politician Anthony Park and his socialite wife Lois Park. The past year and a half proved to be quite the trial and error run with them. First the long distance, then the busy work schedules, and now it was Nick and his inherited family wealth he so carelessly tossed around.
Pushing her romantic problems aside, Jamie chose not to answer and pocketed her cell.
Professor Henry Thorpe was a bitter old man to the core. He was the type of professor who refused to grade assignments turned even a second past the deadline, never curved a test no matter how hard, and refused to let anyone who wasn't on time into his lecture. The old Englishman was tired and impatient in his old age. But there was a soft spot he had when it came to those few bright-eyed students who would come to class with a glimmer of curiosity in their eyes. Like little sponges, ready to soak everything he taught up.
He saw a bit of that curiosity in the young woman who came clambering into his empty lecture hall. She was soaking wet from head to toe. Her upper body was saved for the most part by a fitted leather jacket, but the same couldn't be said about her pants that were sopping and dripping down to her boots.
She squeaked with every step she took further down the rows of chairs.
"You must be Professor Henry Thorpe," were the first words out of her mouth.
"You're late," were the first words out of his. The girl's face fell. He could tell she felt genuinely remorseful for not making it on time for their meeting, so he decided to cut her some slack. "The Metro flooded?" He prompted gruffly, taking in her appearance once again.
The young woman glanced down at her soaking clothes and glanced back up at him with a grimace on her face. "Yes. I'm so sorry. I tried to leave my apartment earlier, but-"
"Ah, save it." Professor Thorpe waved her off. He pressed the palms of his hands onto the arms of his chair to push himself to his feet with a slight wheeze. Oh, he was getting too old for this crap. "Urgh... You must be Janey Archer from the emails."
"Jamie Archer," she corrected him. "... uh, P-Professor."
The Professor had to bite back a smirk at her uttered addition of his title to avoid offending him. Please, as if this little girl could offend him. He could barely look at her without inwardly chuckling at how disarrayed she looked with her tendrils of wet dark red hair sticking to her face like vines. She was amusing. And jittery, but that also may have been the cold.
"You know why I'm here?" she asked through chittering teeth as she pulled her jacket tighter around her middle.
The Professor smacked his tongue. "I may be old, but I'm not senile." He turned towards his chalk board. He could have sworn he heard Miss Archer mutter 'yet' beneath her breath. That little shit. "So, what'd'ya wanna know?" the grouchy British accent creeping out in his voice.
When he turned back to face her, he could've sworn the kid's face lit up like a Christmas tree, as if he'd just flipped the switch from her left brain to her right brain.
She cleared her throat and dropped into the first seat she could reach somewhere close to the fifth row. He watched as Jamie pushed down one of the wood desks. The Professor raised an eyebrow, unsure whether he was amused or impressed when the young reporter produced a small notepad, recorder, and a blue gel ball-point pen.
She clicked her pen and pressed Start on her hand-held recorder.
"So," she began with a smile. "What can you tell me about your military service during the Second World War?"
The old man raised an eyebrow, almost as if to warn her that she was walking an unsteady wire. "I can tell you anything you'd like about those three years of Hell," he huffed, limping his way back to his seat behind his desk. "Where would you like to begin, Miss Janey?"
Instead of pouting, like the Professor incorrectly assumed she would, he watched as she tilted her head a little. He was surprised to see that glimmer in her eyes as a dangerous smile graced her lips.
"How about 'Project Rebirth,' Sergeant Thorpe?"
"On a dark desert highway... Cool wind in my hair."
Margot dragged her palm down her face.
"Warm smell of colitas... Rising up through the air."
The young costume designer threaded her fingers through her hair. "For fuck's sake," she muttered, agitated. If she had to listen to 'Hotel California' one more fucking time, she was going to strangle her twin brother.
"Up ahead in the distance... I saw a shimmering light."
Just then, Margot's phone buzzed. She was amused to find it was Logan.
Zimmerman: does your brother have an Off switch?
She let out a soft snort.
"My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim... I had to stop for the night."
Margot winced at Parker's brutal voice crack.
Margot (roommate): i wish.
She hit send as her brother carried on into the next verse. "There she stood in the doorway... I heard the mission bell," he shouted. Through the madness of whatever was going on in the kitchen, Margot could've swore she heard the front door open. "And I was thinking to myself- this could be Heaven or this could be Hell... Then she lit up a candle... and she show-"
The music echoing off the Loft's walls abruptly stopped.
"Hey-!" Margot could hear her brother protesting.
"That's enough of that. I need to be able to hear myself think," the familiar sound of Jamie's voice replaced Parker's horrific vocals. "What's burning?"
Just as soon as the word's left Jamie's mouth, the Loft fire alarms began to blare.
"Shit!"
"Parker! What did you burn?!" Margot demanded as she abandoned her work in her room to march out to the living room. She halted momentarily when she spotted Jamie. More specifically, all the crap in Jamie's hands. "Woah. What's all this...?" Margot waved her hand to gesture to the bags she was juggling, half-sliding down her arms and shoulders, the other half already fallen at her feet. "Did you go to Fifth Ave without me?"
The redhead eventually gave up with trying to juggle her plastic bags and just dropped it all with a resounding 'thud' against the hardwood floor. With an exasperated sigh, Jamie tugged the hood of her jacket from off her head to reveal a shriveled damp mess of even more auburn hair.
"Damn," Margot gaped at her friend's appearance, fanning the front of her face as more smoke from the kitchen flooded out into the living room.
"For fuck's sake," Jamie grumbled beneath her breath. Margot watched as the redhead stomped across the room to grab the handle of whatever smoky mess her twin had made from off the stove only to quickly toss it into the sink. Jamie's hand smacked the left handle just before a pillar of smoke billowed up into the air followed by a sizzling popping sound echoing across the room.
As the sizzling sound died down, the smoke began to dissipate and the fire alarm abruptly stopped. The group of roommates all stared at one another, not one word spoken between them.
At this point, Logan had finally decided to pull himself out of bed and come out to the living room to see what all the fuss was about. The scene he walked in on seemed tense... and smelt like burnt bacon. In the middle of the floor, a giant pile of bags that looked to be filled with thick hardcover books. Margot was wearing what looked like Piglet & Tigger pajama pants. Parker was covered in stains from whatever he had just failed to cook. And Jamie was soaked, with her mound of auburn hair haphazardly sticking out from all sides of her head.
Logan was dumbfounded. "... What'd I miss?"
Margot turned to glare at Parker as Parker turned to judgmentally glance at Jamie's appearance. Between the twins, Jamie ran a hand through the thick, wet tendrils of hair to get it out of her face before placing her hands on her hips. "Well, Logan... you ever heard of Captain America?"
It had been hours since Jamie had gotten back from Columbia with all the information she could have ever asked for from Professor Thorpe. Correction: Sergeant Thorpe of the British Royal Army.
It was dumb luck that Jamie managed to dig him up. How convenient, a Professor at Columbia University who just so happened to have served in the branch of military that worked directly with what the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division used to be. He'd also been so kind as to gifting her what remained of his belongings from his time with the agency otherwise known as the Strategic Scientific Reserve.
After an injury he suffered after his first month through his deployment to the Allied Front in Italy, he remained loyal to the SSR and picked up a job in archiving due to his Masters degree in political science and public administration coming in handy.
The journalist sat in the center of her room floor riffling through what she could decipher from the documents. There were about twenty or so documents on average in every individual folder, and about thirty folders per booklet case. Thorpe had provided seven cases plus three textbooks he'd written about his military expertise and how the organization contributed to the Allies' win in '45.
Of course, after Jamie had rifled through about two boxes, she'd found a small tidbit that piqued her interest.
Project Rebirth.
It began as a pipe dream concocted by big wigs on Capitol Hill. The need for enhanced individuals came shortly after war turned biological with the creation of gas weapons. Germany had a similar idea, because within the confines of a Nazi laboratory in Frankfurt, a collective group of scientists were working on altering the human genome to create "Ubermensch," or- Super Soldiers. This would be known as Project Nietszche.
After failed attempts from the collective that consisted of Dr. Arnim Zola, Physicist Johann Schmidt, Professor Hans Bruder, Dr. Nathaniel Essex, and Dr. Raymond Koch, only one scientist from the collective had made the biggest breakthrough.
Dr. Abraham Erskine managed to patent a prototype in 1941, but the unfinished product was taken prematurely by Johann Schmidt, who'd risen in rank after brutally murdering the former head of a large Nazi weapons program, taking it as his own and renaming it HYDRA. According the redacted files, while the serum gave Schmidt the enhanced strength, durability, speed, agility, and several other abilities that came with Erskine's serum, it is said to have deformed him. How isn't mentioned in any of the files provided by Professor Thorpe, but several reports from the SSR's "Howling Commandos" missions described the head of HYDRA they faced off against all across Europe as "the Red Skull."
After defecting to the United States, Dr. Erskine was recruited by Colonel Chester Phillips, the head of operations at the SSR. Over the course of a few years, the SSR began recruiting and training potential subjects for what was now known as Project Rebirth, all the while, Dr. Erskine worked in secret as Dr. Joseph Reinstein from Queens to perfect his serum.
By 1943, WWII was still raging on across the Atlantic, and Dr. Erskine had finished his Super Soldier Serum. After rigorous training, the subject selected for the first experiment was Steven G. Rogers of Brooklyn, New York. With help from Howard Stark's invention of the Vita-Ray Chamber that activated the Serum itself within the subject, the process managed to take Rogers, who weighed in at about 110lbs and stood at 5'7", and transformed him into the world's first Super Soldier, weighing 260lbs and standing at 6'2".
Immediately after the successful procedure, Erskine was tragically assassinated feet away from where his greatest accomplishment had just been achieved. He died in Rogers' arms, but was said to have left behind a family and a lasting legacy.
Dissatisfied with only one Super Soldier, Colonel Phillips disbanded Project Rebirth and filed it away under Weapons Plus, a sector dedicated to other SSR projects. Rogers was placed in the hands of the US Government, Senator Richard Brandt placing Rogers with the Propaganda Unit of the US Treasury Department. Performing as "Captain America" with an array of show girls and drummer boys, Rogers rose to fame while selling war bonds for the US.
His tour was abruptly ended after the famed Liberation of Azzano just off the Allied Front in Nazi-occupied Italy, where Rogers went on a solo rescue mission to free the thousands of prisoners of war that had been captured behind enemy lines in a HYDRA facility. Henceforth, with the help of teammembers Sgt. James Barnes, Corp. Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan, Priv. Gabe Jones, Lord James Falsworth of the British Royal Army, Jacque Dernier of the French Intelligence, and Priv. Jim Morita, Cpt. Rogers led the SSR's HYDRA-hunting unit "Howling Commandos" in a mission across Europe, destroying HYDRA labs and factories.
Unfortunately, after Sgt. Barnes' untimely death in the mission to retrieve HYDRA top scientist and former Project Nietzsche contributor Arnim Zola, and the subsequent presumed death of Cpt. Rogers following the final stand against the Red Skull where he crashed Schmidt's bomb-carrying aircraft- the Valkyrie- into the northern Atlantic, the Howling Commandos disbanded. The SSR was dismantled in Europe not long after Agent Margaret "Peggy" Carter headed the final mission to take down the remaining HYDRA facility.
But her remarkable work didn't stop there.
Among to files dated more recently in Thorpe's collection, there's a letter addressed to Thorpe he received not long after the War had ended. He'd continued his job as an archivist with the SSR under Chief Roger Dooley at the New York City branch for another decade and a half before retiring from covert government operations and going into teaching political science at several universities. The letter was a job offer from Margaret Carter, who no longer worked under the SSR, but was searching for new members to join her newly founded organization, with the help of co-founders Chester Phillips and Howard Stark.
When I'd prompted Professor Thorpe why he ignored the offer and the several other offers that SHIELD had sent him over the years, he'd replied, "My time fighting in Wars is over. One was enough, and I wasn't even on the front lines. It wasn't just hard on those who fought, but those of us behind the scenes that had to play double agent everyday with the people in our lives in order to fortify the secrets the SSR protected."
"But wouldn't you want to change the way the Scientific Reserve worked from within this new organization?" I'd asked.
"Oh, kid," he'd laughed at me. "That new organization Carter was cooking up was the SSR, just under new management on a global scale."
Jamie sat back from her laptop screen, staring at her half-complete work, unsure of why she felt as though it was still incomplete. She had all the clues and evidence, all the lines drawn from the history captured in the files her source had provided, that drew a clear picture of SHIELD being what was created from the remnants of the SSR.
The reason why Project Rebirth was so captivating to Jamie was because that was where it all began. Project Rebirth's success and the creation of Captain America, was what ultimately led to science sectors branching out from the SSR in order to create what was now SHIELD.
She was poking the bear, Jamie knew that, but she just couldn't help but keep pulling at the strings to see where it got her. With answers, she silently prayed.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The reporter glanced down at her cell vibrating on the wood panels of her floor. Reaching for it, she already knew who it was before she checked the caller ID. Nick calling...
Jamie inwardly winced. Couldn't this wait?
She felt guilty ignoring the call, but she had a valid excuse. That excuse being that she was working... off the clock... technically.
Still, Jamie returned to the task at hand. She'd downloaded the document and emailed it to Jameson, hoping he wouldn't shoot her pitch down like he had all the dozens of other times she'd came to him with a new shred of evidence about the elusive organization she'd been investigating since what had happened at Stark Industries a few years prior.
God, it was crazy to think that her life had changed so drastically in just two and a half years. Her life was nearly unrecognizable to where she was before her Dad's death and before her breaking story about Iron Man that made her a household name. Now that nearly every front page paper had her name on the byline of the breaking news coverage, Jamie Archer was recognized in the journalism community... which meant more articles, which meant more coverage, which meant less time to follow small leads she'd occasionally get on SHIELD. Her job kept her busy...
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz
But not busy enough, it would seem.
Accepting her fate, Jamie answered this time. "Archer speaking."
"Really? What is this, on the record?" Nick prompted on the other end of the line.
Jamie couldn't help the small smile that his half-hearted joke elicited from her. Even when she wanted to be frustrated with him, his charm was always so difficult to resist. It was how he managed to get her to go on that very first date with him just before she'd left California. It was how he'd convinced her to try long-distance. And it was how he'd convince her to go to almost every political fundraiser gala under the sun in the New York socialite scene with him now that he was back from his fellowship with whatever California Senator his parents had connected him with.
"Sorry," the young woman apologized with a soft laugh. "I, uh, it's been a long day."
"Is that why you've been ignoring my calls and texts all day?" he asked.
Jamie bit back a groan. Of course he'd be butthurt about that. "It was a hectic day at the office. I left my phone in my purse for most of it anyway." A blatant lie...
"Really? That's interesting because when I called the Bugle to ask for you, they told me you'd been out all day." Jamie screwed her eyes shut and let her head fall back until she was lying flat on the floor. God dammit... "Something about visiting a man... at a University. A professor, of some kind."
She ran a hand down her face. "You know, I really don't appreciate you checking up on me, Nick."
"Yeah? Well- Thank you!" Jamie frowned. Was he getting coffee right now? It was almost four pm. "- If you answered my calls and texts like a normal girlfriend, I wouldn't have to call your job to figure out whether you were safe or whether or not I should... I don't know, start packing my bags to make room for whatever young professor you've decided deserves more of your time than I do."
She resisted the urge to groan. Of course he'd take her being busy and unable to get back to him as an affront, and of course, only he would draw up the outrageous claim that it was because she was seeing other people.
"I went to meet a source at Columbia. Your so-called competition is a WWII veteran who is almost seventy years older than me," Jamie conceded, her irritation growing. "It's not like that, nor has it ever been like that."
"Well, I wouldn't know what it's like because I hardly see you anymore," Nick replied. "You realize I haven't seen you since Friday night, right?"
Oh, yes. She'd been counting the days, wondering how many days it was socially acceptable to ignore your boyfriend for while you tried to decide what to do now the you realized that you didn't want the life or the future his parents had planned for him. So far, it had been all weekend and Monday. She'd avoided him thus far with the excuse of edits with Jameson for her Hammer Industries story keeping her occupied. But now that it was out... she was grasping at straws trying to come up with excuses to avoid the subject that had reared its ugly head Friday night at a dinner with his family at some upscale country club in North New York.
After the prolonged silence, Jamie heard Nick sigh heavily. "Look, can we just talk about this? Over dinner maybe? I can still get us a late reservation at that sushi place you liked."
She knew he was trying to amend the situation, but it only made her feel worse about herself.
Just then, a notification appeared in her inbox from JJ:
From: JJ Jameson
To: Jamie Archer
Fine. I'll greenlight your damn spy story. But you better find me some better evidence than just a couple of papers a professor at Columbia pulled out of moth balls. I'm not about to get sued for libel because of your incompetence.
The young woman pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to find a way to break the news lightly, knowing there was none. Whether she pulled it off slowly or quickly, the band aid was still going to sting like a motherfucker.
"I... I can't," she tried to convey her remorse in her soft spoken words, but she knew there was no amount of apologies that could make up for her actual incompetence as a girlfriend. "I'm elbow-deep in research and JJ just hit me with another deadline. I'm sorry, Nick."
There was a beat of silence where Jamie was almost convinced he'd just set his phone down and walked away out of frustration. She was scared to ask if he was there, so she held her breath and waited for his response.
"... me too, Jamie."
The line clicked. He'd hung up.
The hand holding her phone fell limp into her lap. She stared at the work around her with slight disdain. She knew it wasn't her job's fault for keeping her away from Nick, it was her own for putting herself through this much work to purposefully get out of having to deal with the fact that she wanted to end the relationship with Nick.
The reason she felt like such an asshole about it wasn't just because she was stringing him along, but because she herself didn't know what was wrong with her for wanting out of the perfectly acceptable relationship.
Nick was sweet, charming, stubborn, ambitious. He was quick-witted, intelligent, had gorgeous hair and excellent posture. He sent her flowers every month anniversary the first year they were together. He had bought her nearly $400 worth in jewelry as gifts over the months. He got along with all her friends, he hardly ever picked fights with her, and if he did, he'd let her win. Nick Park was the perfect boyfriend, and they had the ideal relationship together.
But then that dinner... with his Mom...
It had been a single question. One stupid question that had caught her so off guard, it was as though she'd been looking at their relationship through a colorful kaleidoscope when it abruptly went dark with one wrong twist. Her perspective on their relationship took did a full 180 when she realized that she had been enduring this relationship day by day, week by week, and month by month... but she'd never actually put thought into their future.
And it all started because Nick's extended frat-turned-businessman cousin on his Dad's side had mockingly asked her what she did for a living.
"I'm a reporter for the Daily Bugle."
"Oh, that's right!" Mrs. Park gasped, her silverware clinking against her plate as she dropped her hands in realization. "I just saw your name on the front page the other day. Something about those robbers in Queens that hijacked a truck."
"The Oscorp truck attempted robbery?" Nick's uncle chimed in from down the table. Jamie had to nearly crane her neck forward to see where he was. "You covered that?"
Jamie wasn't sure whether to feel offended or appreciative of his surprised tone of voice. "Yes. That was me."
"You're Jamie Archer?" the cousin prompted. "You know Iron Man!"
The young woman, still trying to figure out how to deal with all this new attention on her from her boyfriend's family, shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Uh, we're... acquaintances."
"You were there, right? At the Expo? I read your piece." Frat boy just couldn't seem to stop. Apparently, he kept up with her career more than some of her actual blood-related family did back in Boston.
"Yeah, I was there," she ultimately decided to buck up and just roll with the punches. "The day it re-opened and the day of the... Hammer Incident." And, boy, had that been a scoop.
Just then, she felt a heavy hand on the back of her chair. "We're just glad to have you back in one piece," Nick told her reassuringly.
"She was in Monaco too," the cousin nodded eagerly. When his parents glanced at him with quizzical looks, he shrugged. "What? I saw it on TV. The cool guy with the electric whips that fought Iron Man, she was there!"
While Nick's cousin was all but fangirling over Jamie, the rest of the Parks looked outwardly disturbed by this new information. The redhead silently wished the cousin would stop giving fuel to their fire of disapproval.
"My, that's, uh..." Mrs. Park cleared her throat as she set her pressed white napkin in her lap. "That's a very dangerous and demanding job you have, Jamie."
Jamie shrugged, "I'm a legacy. It's all I know." She'd hoped that by playing the 'legacy' card, she'd get brownie points with Senator Park, seeing as he spent so much time and money investing in his son's future to follow in his footsteps as their household's next great politician.
But her attempt was fruitless.
"Well, I hope your job isn't expecting you to carry all of the workload for the paper," Mrs. Park tsked, returning to her prior task of cutting her lamb entrée. "After all, how will they survive when you're gone?"
Beside her, Nick dropped his steak knife onto his plate with a resounding clank.
Jamie ignored it. "What do you mean when I'm gone?" She turned to Nick for answers, but he was still covering his mouth, trying to chew the large bite of steak he'd just ingested faster so he'd be able to stop whatever discussion was about to unfold.
He wasn't fast enough.
"When you get married, of course," his Mom gushed, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You can't be expected to run a household and raise kids while working full-time."
"Don't even get me started on how hard it is to raise kids while just being the wife of a politician," Nick's aunt laughed, snorting a little at the end of her sentence.
"Or how it'd look for Nicky to be married to a journalist come election season," Senator Park chimed in, Nick choking on his steak as a result. "He has an image to uphold as New York's top contender to be the youngest Senator in United States history."
While conversation was still flying back and forth across the table in rapid-fire fashion, Jamie was still reeling from Mrs. Park's initial statement about marriage. Followed up by talking about tending to a household and then having kids... Jamie felt the room getting hotter and her blood getting colder.
"Dad. Mom." Nick tried to reprimand his parents through his coughs.
"What? It's true," was all Senator Park said in his defense.
Unable to roll with the punches anymore, Jamie cleared her throat to cover how loudly her silverware hit her plate with how quickly she tossed what was in her hands down on the table. "Excuse me." Her chair lurched backwards as she pushed herself to her feet, spinning on her heel to make her way towards the closest exit so she could breathe again.
She didn't care if she had made a scene or if she had upset Nick after calling a cab to take her home, all she cared about was how alien the concept of getting married, starting a family, and settling down with Nick felt.
She imagined when most women were implicated in a relationship where the man was the one ready to tie the knot and settle down, they were ecstatic with anticipation that they'd snagged one of the few eligible bachelors in the world that was willing to take the plunge so soon in a relationship. Jamie was supposed to feel warmth, excitement, or even just acceptance over the possibility of getting to spend the rest of her life with the man she'd been romantically involved with for over two years.
Instead, all she felt was terrified.
Hence, her reasons for putting off having a conversation that may end what she'd cherished and dedicated so many months of her life towards building. What her and Nick had wasn't a fluke, she knew that. But maybe what scared her the most was that she could almost picture herself as his housewife; standing vigilant at his side as he made his way up in the political sphere, having to deal with the onslaught of duties, responsibilities, and social expectations that would come with being Nick's wife and the mother of his children. It was just too much.
So, she shoved it aside and focused on the bigger problem in her life now: SHIELD.
It had taken a few more days of convincing Jameson to reassign several other breaking news stories to other reporters so she could focus on her SHIELD Expose, but Jamie had accomplished the impossible and had argued her way into getting herself four days of creative freedom before Jameson pulled the plug.
In the large conference room Jameson had allowed her to occupy for her investigative process, Jamie had set up a make-shift detectives board, like the ones seen in old Detective movies. Logan had even helped with completing it with blue string, since the craft store he had stopped at had been out of red.
The unstoppable pair of Jamie Archer, Daily Bugle reporter, and Logan Zimmerman, Daily Bugle photojournalist, had set themselves up for greatness and vowed not to leave the confines of their workspace until they'd come up with solid, hard evidence that SHIELD was implicated in human experimentation.
So far, the pair was coming up empty.
"Okay. So, we've triple-checked through every document Thorpe had, reread every possible biography or available-to-the-public document on Howard Stark, we even ran SSR and SHIELD correspondents' names through ViCAP," Jamie exclaimed, exasperatedly as she twirled her blue gel pen in her fingers, her feet kicked up onto the conference table as she rocked in her seat.
"Twice," Logan piped up from where he sat opposite of her, his head only being held up by his hand.
"Twice. Ugh," Jamie spun in her chair, pushing off to clamber to her feet. "This is hopeless, isn't it?"
Logan stared at her dumbly. "Are you asking me to get me to help you talk yourself out of this insane project, or are you asking me because you honestly believe that you, one of the most stubborn people on the planet-" Jamie made a face. "-aren't going to dig up something that implicates what you already know is true?"
Jamie stared back at her friend.
"I hate it when you're right sometimes."
Logan let out a single sharp laugh. "Come on, though, Jamie," he pressed as he watched her pace back and forth on the other side of the table. "Every sign, every clue, every document you've pulled- points to this organization. All we have to do is find something more recent to tie it to that gives us some ground to stand on..."
Jamie nodded in agreement. She could always count on her photographer to be her voice of reason when she started to lose her head.
"You know... just in case we get sued for libel and have to end up paying millions of dollars in fines to a covert military organization that may or may not exist," Logan added.
The reporter pursed her lips. "And moment ruined."
He threw his hands up. "I'm only telling you the truth. Being sued is a genuine concern to have."
"Well, right now, thinking about the repercussions of messing this story up isn't doing me any good," the redhead replied. "I need to focus on where possible leads would be that point to concrete evidence."
"What about the, uh, what was the Agent's name again? Maggie? Marjorie?"
"Margaret Carter," Jamie corrected idly. "Yeah, I looked."
"And?"
And she'd found an old woman in a nursing home suffering from mental illness in the form of dementia and severe memory loss who would only be put through unnecessary stress if a random reporter showed up at her doorstep asking about an agency she founded that technically shouldn't exist in the eyes of the public.
"And nothing. It was a dead end." Jamie ran her hands through her hair, pulling it out of place from beneath her wool beanie. "I think I need to go for a walk... Clear my head, try and see if a change of setting helps get my brain working again."
As the young woman gathered up her jacket from the nearby chair she'd left it draped over, her photographer sat straighter in his seat. "Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Maybe to get one of those killer protein smoothies from Smoothie King or something," she supplied, pulling on her sweater over her already long sleeve top. It was late February in New York and the last thing Jamie felt like dealing with was frostbite.
Just as Logan opened his mouth to offer to come with, he caught himself. "Wait- which Smoothie King? The one near the apartment or the one on Broadway?"
Jamie pouted guiltily, which was all the answer Logan needed.
"You and your obsession with Broadway, I swear to God-" the photographer ran a hand down his face exasperatedly.
The redhead only giggled in response. "What? I used to be a theatre kid in school. You know, before my family shoved me into a boarding school and made me take up piano."
Logan threw his head back and groaned. "Ugh, rich people!"
There was a moment where Jamie flinched that, thankfully, Logan was too preoccupied to notice.
"Tell me about it," she muttered before heading for her walk.
It was relatively breezy in New York City. Jamie was amused to see that there was still leftover confetti from the Ball Drop just a handful of weeks ago that still littered the blocks surrounding the tourist attraction.
During her freshman year at NYU, when Jamie found herself stuck or at an impasse, she'd indulge her theatre-loving heart by taking a walk down Broadway to take in the history of the street. She liked reading the giant posters, checking out dates for shows she probably wouldn't go to to help clear her mind by thinking of simpler times, like when she'd used to dream of being a singer on Broadway when she was little.
The street provided a sense of nostalgia for a place she'd never been before. It had become a place of solace for the young woman who longed for her place back home in Boston with her Dad. But now that he was gone, and Jamie had no real reason to ever return to Boston, she clung to Broadway just a little tighter in her silent walk.
Passing pedestrians ignored her, cab honks echoed off the crowded buildings, and the soft music coming from a radio in a nearby bodega all indicated that it was a normal day. Jamie had the ideology that if the world was still spinning, it wasn't ending and she'd be alright if one thing didn't work out for her, no matter how much she wanted it to.
Jamie's peace was abruptly knocked off its axis by the sound of screeching tires and loud honks from the cars closest to her on the street. Just like any other passing pedestrian, Jamie glanced over to see the damage of whatever accident had occurred this time on the ruthless Manhattan streets. What she hadn't expected to see was her salvation in the form of a single shirt.
Granted, the shirt was being worn by a muscular blonde man wearing khakis and no shoes, just standing in the middle of the street, his head whipping around as though he was lost. At first, Jamie hadn't even noticed the shirt. In fact, the first thing she'd noticed was how familiar his facial features looked. But then her eyes trailed and caught sight of the emblem on his white shirt- the old SSR zodiac she'd seen on countless documents in the past week.
"What the..."
Suddenly, the lost barefoot man broke into a full on sprint, his long legs carrying him at nearly the same speed as passing cars all around him.
No fucking way.
Smoothies all but forgotten, Jamie's brain kicked into action-mode and she found herself trailing after the man in a sprint of her own. He'd gone up through 46th and turned into Times Square. Jamie got a few looks of annoyance from how quickly she was having to push through the other pedestrians on the sidewalk since she couldn't exactly dash in the middle of the street the way this unknown SSR man was. But as her feet carried her faster, Jamie couldn't help the millions of questions bouncing around in her brain.
Where did he come from?
Who was he?
How was he wearing an SSR shirt?
How did he run that fast?
Panicking now that she was getting close enough to see the crowd beginning to form around the lost man still suspended in shock in the center of the most popular places in the city, Jamie whipped her phone out to call Logan. He picked up on the second ring just after the first set of black cars spun out from the street and all but formed a perimeter, obscuring her view of the man she'd chased.
"Hello-?"
"Logan! You need to get down to Times Square right now."
"What? What happened?"
Making sure to linger off towards the sides as she craned her neck to get a better look at what was going on behind the brigade of vehicles, the journalist tried to find her vantage point to get a picture for proof. What this was proof of, she had yet to figure out, but it had to have been connected to what she had been digging up on. She just couldn't believe how lucky she'd been to have been standing on Broadway just as whoever this man was came dashing into her life.
"Just get down here," she urged before shutting her cell. She slid it into the pocket of her jacket and produced the emergency digital camera Logan had started making her carry around with her since the Stane incident on the Stark Labs roof. "Excuse me," Jamie tiptoed her way through the outskirts of the growing crowd of Times Square visitors to be able to climb up onto a nearby newspaper dispenser.
Careful not to fall flat on her face, the young woman made sure to keep her balance afoot as she lined up her shot. From her high vantage point, she was able to see the blonde muscular man in his SSR shirt speaking with a bald man in all black clothing... with an eyepatch.
A new player has entered the field, Jamie made note of him.
The reporter lined up her shot, making sure to get the SSR emblem so she'd be able to have leverage for her investigation. After she was sure she had got the perfect angle, she hit the button to capture... Unfortunately for Jamie, she'd forgotten to turn the flash off, like a rookie.
...Oh shit...
Jamie lowered the camera from her face to find several agents staring in her direction after having noticed the flash. Even the eyepatch man and the blonde in the shirt looked to be caught off guard by being photographed.
Oh fuck...
Haphazardly, Jamie slid off the newsrack and pushed her way into the crowd, willing herself to blend in so the agents wouldn't think to pick her up to confiscate her camera like they almost had the last time she'd come into contact with SHIELD. At least that's who she assumed the crazy Men in Black with the huge black SUVs were with. Who knows, maybe the pirate guy is in charge.
After years of paranoia, Jamie knew not to trust the likes of agents and spies. She was sure to extract the SID chip from her digital camera, the small piece of metal was now the solution to all her problems and would be the stepping stone to her exposing the secrets of SHIELD. Jamie wasn't quite sure where to hide it where no one searching her would find it, but she realized that they were closing in as she speed walked through the crowd in the opposite direction in which she came.
The agents began shouting after her, but she kept her head down and kept walking. At this point, she was frantically searching her pockets for anything to hide the chip in, and finally settled on an unopened individual piece of gum. The silver wrapping was the perfect place to stick the chip in.
She had just dropped the gum wrapper with the chip into her back pocket when she halted in her steps, nearly falling backwards at the sudden appearance of three men in suits that towered over her.
Shit.
They'd got her...
The young woman nervously swallowed as she stared up at the three agents staring down their noses at her. As if on cue, another large black SUV pulled into place beside the curb right behind the agents. One of them reached for the back door and held it open. Inside, another man dressed in a suit greeted her, only this time...
"Miss Archer, why don't you join me?"
... she knew him.
"Agent Phil?" Jamie dumbly asked.
"Come on," one of the other towering agents on the sidewalk gripped her upper right arm in a firm grip. It wasn't tight enough to bruise her, but it was strong enough that she knew if she tried to run, she'd just be yanked right back. There really was no point in resisting.
With exasperating reluctance, the young woman allowed the agents to escort her towards the car. She climbed in, wondering if her brief walk down Broadway would be her last as the door was shut behind her.
The car began to drive the instant she had taken her seat a few feet away from Agent Phil.
The silence was tense, nearly suffocating. Jamie was waiting for the car to pull into an empty alley so that the fake insurance agent could shoot her in the back of the head and leave her behind a dumpster for the rats. Destroy the evidence, wipe out the witness.
"You should put your seatbelt on."
Jamie had been so preoccupied with keeping her breathing steady so not to have a panic attack, that she almost hadn't heard the man beside her speak.
"What?"
"The entrance to the garage coming up here is a bit bumpy, so you might want to put your seatbelt on," Agent Phil reiterated simply, gesturing to the strap he had over his chest.
Jamie was still so lost. "What?"
Agent Phil turned away, a look of amusement on his face. "You know, when they told me you asked a lot of questions, I'd assumed it'd be more than just the same one over and over again."
The reporter, choosing to ignore the last part of his jibe at her, furrowed her eyebrows. "Who's 'they'?"
"There's a good question." Jamie's contorted face of confusion morphed into one of irritation. Smart ass, she fought the urge to bite back. "Like I said- you might want to put your seatbelt on."
Jamie glanced out the window as she tried to get a gauge about where this apparent garage was. It was hard to pinpoint where she was in the vast city when all she could see out of the car window was brick buildings and the occasional view of a street. She wasn't sure where she was being taken, but wherever it was... from the look of it, it didn't seem like there were a lot of people around.
If they kill you now, literally no one will be around to witness. Jamie withered away in her seat, reluctantly pulling on her seatbelt as the natural light from the windows faded in the dark as they pulled into the garage.
Jamie tried to see what the garage looked like, but it was pitch black. Curious to see how the driver was able to see in these conditions, she peered around the passenger's seat in front of her to find that the driver wasn't navigating his way through the dark, rather had just set the car in park.
"Are we... are we here- OH!"
Jamie yelped in surprise when the platform the car was parked on jerked.
Beside her, Agent Phil looked as though he was fighting the urge to laugh at her.
Upon realizing that she had overreacted and they were only being lifted down on the platform and she wasn't being dropped to her death, the young woman sat back against the leather seats and wished they'd envelop her. She held a hand over her heart as she tried to regulate her breathing to get it back down to normal. She was way too anxious. If she wasn't careful, these agents would use it to their advantage.
After a couple moments of being lifted down, there was light again... only this time it came from overhead LED lights that ligned the vast basement parking garage that housed what looked to be rows and rows of black government-issued vehicles. It was a bit surreal.
They'd parked near the back of the garage and while the driver got out, Agent Phil made no move to open his door and no one was coming over to her side to yank her out either.
"Am I being arrested?" Jamie finally asked the question she'd been dying to know the answer to since she'd stupidly forgotten to turn the flash off on her camera.
Agent Phil turned to look at her. "No."
"Why am I here then?"
Instead of answering, the older man wordlessly held his hand out.
She didn't need to ask what he was silently asking for. Jamie rolled her eyes as she reached into her pocket and produced her phone and hand-held recorder, which she'd been able to subtly switch on during her capture.
The reporter watched as the Agent pressed the Off button on her recorder. He shook it slightly in between his fingers. "Very clever," he commended her, pocketing both devices in his inner suit jacket. Once they were out of her reach, he took that time to exit the car.
Jamie slumped in her seat. There was no way she'd be able to get any of this now. She was in the belly of the beast, and she was literally useless in capturing the evidence of it all. Logan would be disappointed... Oh shit! She'd forgotten she'd called him to Times Square-
Just as soon as her door was opened, the young woman pounced out and quickly caught up with Agent Phil. "I actually really need my phone back," she tried to sound firm, but all she really sounded like was a brat. "It's for an emergency."
"Oh yeah?" the Agent played along as him and his legion of other nicely dressed agents in suits not-so-subtly surrounded them on all sides upom their entrance into whatever building she was being taken to. "Who are you gonna call?"
Thinking she had a shot at getting her one free phone call, Jamie had to think on the spot. "My..." Mom was gone. Dad was dead. Friends are at work. Editor is out of the question. "... lawyer."
The group of Agents escorted Jamie towards a large elevator. Agent Phil gestured for her to go in first. Without having much of a choice, she continued to comply.
"You have a lawyer now?" Agent Phil prompted, clearly not buying a thing she was saying. "Impressive. What's their name?"
"What?"
"Your lawyer. What's their name?"
Fuck.
"Uh... Patty... Griffin."
Oh, she hated how shitty her lying skills got when she was under immense pressure.
The elevator ride was quick. When the doors opened, Agent Phil shook his head, glancing down at her from over his shoulder as he started out in front of her. "Patty Griffin...?" She winced. "Not your best work, Archer."
A shiver went up Jamie's spine as she was led down another corridor, this time one lined with offices and room with other people inside. "And... of course you keep up with my work... because you have me under surveillance," she surmised in a shaky voice, trying not to let her stride break despite the fact that her knees felt so weak that she could literally be blown over by a strong gust of wind.
"Not under surveillance, per say," a new voice voice chimed in from the end of the hall. "Just checking in occasionally to make sure you haven't burned your life to the ground." The all-too familiar redheaded spy smirked at Jamie, her hands on her hips and gun strapped at her side.
Natalie Rushman had been a fixture at Stark Industries a few months back at the start of the whole Hammer Industries/Anton Vanko debacle that nearly cost Tony his life and Jamie her job. After being hired by Tony as Pepper's replacement for the position of his executive assistant now that he'd promoted Pepper to CEO, Natalie worked her way into the good graces of Pepper to the point of being included on the invite list for Tony's party.
Where Jamie just so happened to bump into her again after Monaco and yet again at the Stark Expo.
It wasn't hard to figure out that Natalie was an agent of some sort after thinly veiled threats and a very impressive display of martial arts capabilities at Hammer Industries. Which sucked because before finding out she was a spy, Jamie was actually starting to like the fellow redhead.
"Why do you care if my life falls apart?" the young reporter shot back at the agent. "It's not like you give a shit about anyone other than what your higher-ups tell you to give a shit about. I doubt you're capable of even feeling compassion for the way you wreck peoples' lives."
Natalie tried not to let it show just how much the words affected her, but even Agent Phil caught the nearly imperceptible flash of hurt in her eyes. Guilt tasted sour in the back of Jamie's tongue as she broke her eye contact with Natalie out of shame. She was taking her anger at the agency out on Natalie, who may or may not have deserved it.
Sticking with whatever the plan was, Natalie moved out of the way for the group to lead Jamie towards what looked to be an interrogation room. It wasn't dimly lit, like what Jamie assumed super secret spy interrogation rooms would be. There was no metal table or dried blood stains. There wasn't even padding on the walls to soundproof if she screamed too loud during the torture.
"Please-" Jamie flinched at the loud bang that was the door shutting behind Natalie, cutting the two women off from Agent Phil and the rest of the group. "-have a seat."
Still defiant to a fault, Jamie tested just how far she could push her luck with the agent. "If I said I'd prefer to stand, would you break my legs and shove me into the seat?"
"No."
Mmm, somehow Jamie believed her.
Making a show of it, the reporter slowly walked around the table before taking a seat... very... slowly. A part of her was suspicious that the room was booby-trapped or this was some kind of sick game to get her to break.
"No one's going to hurt you, Red."
Jamie frowned at the nickname. "What am I doing here then, Agent Rushman?"
"Rushman was a cover," the agent surprisingly admit.
"Obviously," she retorted. "Any chance I can, uh, get a real name maybe?"
A knowing smirk graced the agent's face. "Not a chance." The younger woman frowned. Eh, worth a shot.
"It's fine," Jamie brushed off. "I'll just get it next time I see Stark in California- oh, wait! Actually, I hear he's spending a lot of time here in New York working on some sort of Clean Energy Project. You hear about that-?"
"What are you doing taking candids of our agents?"
Wow, she cut right to the chase. Jamie whistled quietly.
"You mean to tell me that the man that dashed out into Times Square at the same speed of a Buick is one of your agents?" Even Natalie looked a little deflated, knowing she was caught on that one. "No. He's not one of your agents, he's one of your assets. You know, one of the many SHIELD has after developing several projects that involve illegal human experimentation."
The redhead was no longer smirking. The kindness in the agent's eyes long gone now that she realized just how much truth the woman seated across from her knew.
Jamie knew she'd played her hand right in this moment.
"What do you want?"
The reporter nearly guffawed at the question. The elusive agency that had taken her from off the street against her will and shoved her into their basement was now asking her what she wanted? This entire thing was ridiculous.
"Well, for starters, my phone and recorder back would be nice!" Jamie made sure to raise her voice, just in case Agent Phil just so happened to be listening on the other side of the door. "And after that, I'd like to speak to whoever is in charge because what I want is access."
Natalie frowned. "Access?"
"I know there's more your organization is hiding," Jamie explained. "I want access to the other human experiments SHIELD has conducted since Project Rebirth... or I take my photos and I go public." It was unnerving, sitting in a building surrounded by people who could snap her neck and make her disappear without a trace like they had probably dozens of other times in their line of work. It was even more unnerving sitting there in front of a deadly agent and threatening her, and her agency as a whole.
It also felt a little liberating, if Jamie was being honest with herself.
"And what makes you think you're in any position to ask for such a thing?"
Jamie and Natalie both glanced back at the door after neither had heard the entry of eyepatch man. Aha! Jamie wanted to fist pump in victory. I was right about him being in charge!
"As if I don't already have one PR disaster to deal with after earlier," the man groaned. "Now I get to deal with you. Well, congratulations, Miss Archer, today is your lucky day."
Confused about what was going on and what this man was talking about, Jamie glanced between him and Natalie, wondering which one was going to be the first to explain to her what the hell was happening.
Just then, Eyepatch slowly made his way over to the table and somehow produced a thick, banded manila folder onto the table space between the two redheads. There had to be a catch, Jamie figured, a little to skeptic for her own good. She stared nervously at the file, still unwilling to touch it until she was sure she wasn't going to be shot in the forehead if she read something she shouldn't.
"Go ahead," Eyepatch insisted. "You want access, there it is. You mentioned Project Rebirth, didn't you?"
Jamie frowned, her hand shooting out to pull the file closer so she could read the title.
Scientific Strategic Reserve: Operation Rebirth
How convenient... Too convenient. Jamie didn't trust it.
She gently pushed it away with her fingers. "What's the catch? What aren't you telling me about this... arrangement? I read it, I have all that information, but to what end?"
Eyepatch looked irritated. He turned to his agent beside him, "She does ask a lot of questions, hm?"
"I'm a journalist. It's my job," Jamie finally snapped. "You ever stop to think that maybe the reason I ask all these questions is because people like you keep so much a secret?"
Eyepatch's uncovered eye twitched, which couldn't have been a good sign.
"This-" he pointed to the file. "-is me letting you in on a secret. Since you're so keen on figuring out what you saw today to the point where you snapped a picture of it, I mean- come on! Flash on, really?"
Jamie crossed her arms and looked away out of embarrassment.
"Speaking of which..."
The reporter had been so preoccupied with her interaction with Eyepatch that she hadn't even realized Natalie had extracted herself from her seat and had walked silently behind her. At least not until it was too late and the agent had already collected the camera in her jacket without Jamie even realizing.
"Got it," Natalie exclaimed, holding up the camera for her boss to see.
"Hey!" Jamie sat up in her seat, patting her jacket where the device had been moments before. Empty. "What the hell?! That's my property! You have no right-"
"We have every right," Eyepatch retorted, his joking tone now long gone as he fixed her with a very pointed, intense stare. "In order to protect the interests of not only this country, but also the general human population, sometimes it requires discretion. I understand in your line of work that it's the ultimate sin to lie to the public, but I hope this helps you understand why it is we keep certain things secrets here, Miss Archer."
Throwing caution to the wind, the young woman pulled the file closer to her. She took a deep breath in and dove in- head first.
While she skimmed the file's contents, similar to what Thorpe had provided her with, she slowly began filling in the blanks to the already partially put-together puzzle of answers. However, even after learning the truth within the few minutes it took her to get past the first few months of documentation of Project Rebirth, Jamie was left with unanswered questions.
They weren't telling her everything.
Her head shot up from her careful reading once her fingers traced the lines along one of the propaganda sheets that had been included in this odd collection of documents. "Captain America?" she scoffed. "You mean to tell me Captain America wasn't just a propaganda front? Whatever came out of Project Rebirth was actually him? You've got to be kidding me. He- he was an old World War II myth!"
"Try living legend," Eyepatch corrected.
"Living? He went missing in-" she stopped herself.
Once her train of thoughts caught up with the churning mechanics in her brain and the knowing look on Eyepatch's face, the truth hit her like a ton of bricks.
"No way... That- that was him?" she pointed to nowhere in particular, referencing the man in the SSR shirt she'd captured on camera earlier. "But he'd have to be decades older. I mean- there's no way the guy I saw out there couldn't have been older than three decades, let alone a century. You seriously expect me to believe you didn't just replicate Erskine's Super Soldier Serum to create Captain America 2.0?"
Eyepatch sat back in his seat. "You can believe whatever you want."
Jamie narrowed her eyes, not particularly liking his nonchalant tone. "What are you keeping out of this?" Jamie prompted as she shut the file and pointed at the emblem on the cover. "What aren't you telling me?"
The man sighed, leaning forward as he clasped his fingers together on the table between them. "Several weeks ago, just after Stark's birthday party-" both Jamie and the Director glanced over at Rushman, standing idly in the corner of the room. "-a Russian oil company spotted a large vessel along the Northern Atlantic icecaps. With global warming progressing, the ice melted to reveal what the ocean had been hiding for decades and we were able to unearth the Captain within what was once HYDRA's Valkyrie ship."
Jamie shook her head. There was no way anyone could have survived the crash let alone the temperature mixed with decades of being frozen under ice.
"We believe the Serum was able to keep the Captain in an animated prolonged state of deep sleep while frozen in the icecaps," the man explained. "We were only recently able to revive him when he escaped from our New York facility."
Jamie ran a hand down her face. "Oh my God..."
"Need a second?"
The redhead removed her hand to glare at the other redhead across the room. "Sorry if this is a lot to process. I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that you have a living fossil living somewhere in your basement and think this isn't something the public should now? I mean, what statement are planning on putting out for this kind of thing? I'm assuming you already have a lie to cover this up?"
"That's not anything you should be concerned with just yet," Eyepatch remarked as he began to rise from his seat. "You see, now you've got your access. You have your answers. You're whole mission is informing the public, well, now you can. You really wanna break this story about a man barely able to process the idea of him being alive, and plaster his face all across the world like this, Miss Archer?
Jamie shook her head. "No, no, no. Don't spin this around on me. I just report on the shit you bury."
"And now you have the choice of reporting on something we uncovered... do what you will with it, but I leave the moral dilemma of deciding how to go about it up to you," Eyepatch retorted, carefully plucking her phone and her voice recorder from inside his bulky black coat. He placed both onto the table, but when she went to reach for them, he pulled them back out of her reach. She glanced up at him with a questioning look. "You're free to go, but may I remind you that SHIELD is meant to protect people, people like you and your readers who are best left in the dark because knowledge is power and sometimes power in the wrong hands can lead to disasters."
His hand abruptly let go of her belongings and she gathered them up before anyone else could take them away again.
The door to the interrogation room opened and Rushman stood nearby vigilantly. "We'll have a car take you back to your apartment to think it over," the woman explained as he boss made his way out of the door.
Just before Eyepatch could make it very far, Jamie called after him. "Hey!"
Both Natalie and her boss glanced back at her.
The redhead felt her cheeks grow warm beneath the piercing gaze of these two people fully capable of making her disappear. She had every reason to take what she had and run with it, but she couldn't leave the conversation the way Eyepatch had left it.
Her Dad had taught her that even if you're scared to say what you believe, it was always better to speak your truth than to allow your narrative to be written by someone else. Nothing was ever written in stone, but Jamie would be damned if she allowed this man to go on believing him and his organization were some kind of heroic agency.
"You ever think maybe you've been holding on to some of this knowledge for a little too long? What happens when your tickets get punched?" she prompted the pair, her heart beating in her ears. "You think you're the only ones with knowledge incapable of leaving destruction in their wake?"
a/n: anywayyyyy, see you guys in another couple months or so.
