Freddie Fletcher - Agent Freddie Fletcher, he sometimes had to remind himself - checked the reflection in the shop window to ensure he was still on-target.
It was easy to track the target through the streets. Multiple remote access requests to connect to their phone had proved unfruitful, so the team had been monitoring her with standard techniques for quite some time. There was no reason to assume that today would be any different, or that orders would change.
Unassuming, the agent sometimes wondered why the civilian was such a high-value target. Her file alone was encrypted two or three levels beyond his basic security access, and so far none of his colleagues knew either. Secret shit, whatever. This was an easy enough security and tracking detail,and he got to enjoy some really great coffee.
"Entering now", Freddie reported into his coms link, pushing the door open. The bell rang softly.
"Copy," Jane Thomas - Janie, to him, forever - reported in his ear. His eye-in-the-sky. "Will await your call-in at future movement."
Freddie ordered his coffee right after the target, just black coffee, in case the target opted not to sit down like she always did. If today followed the usual Wednesday trend, after physical therapy she stopped at the cafe, ordered a coffee with cream, and would buy and read a newspaper for about an hour before heading back to the brownstone.
He turned away from the register after collecting his coffee and nearly dropped it. She was looking right at him, arms crossed and a disapproving glare on her face.
He smiled awkwardly, just like an ordinary stranger would, and shuffled around her to check out the bulletin board. Shit, he thought, shit!
She followed him, and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, trying to make his face look as innocent as possible. "Can I help you?" He asked.
She jerked her head towards her usual table. "You should sit."
"I'm sorry, do I know you?" He tried one last time to recover the situation.
"None of you are sneaky, I'm just letting you know," the woman said, not bothering to look at him again. "Now stop embarrassing yourself and sit with me."
Freddie contemplated calling Janie as he followed the target to her table. She sat, holding her coffee with both hands. Her hands were shaking, he noticed. Though her glare had been powerful and commanding before, now she wouldn't look at him.
Freddie cleared his throat slightly. "We tried calling."
"I don't have a phone," she replied curtly.
"See, I know you were issued a Stark phone because those are all serialized and have special access-"
"I. Don't. Have. A phone," she emphasized with a bitter tone, "Happy took mine. If there's a concern that I'm going to sue, or sell a story to a tabloid, please just leave me alone. I have no intention of trying to make this into anything. I just want to-" she cut herself off. "I won't cause any trouble."
"That's not-"
Mab stopped him immediately. "Please don't. I'm being as polite as I can, but let me make this clear; I want to move on, and I can't do that when I keep seeing fucking Avengers badges in every coffee shop and waiting room." She seemed more calm than one should, all things considered. "I understand you want to protect them. It's fine, I understand you're doing your job. But I've got the message, please call off the goon squad trailing me on a regular basis."
Freddie didn't know what to say. He was barely allowed to know this woman's name, so he definitely didn't have the authority to stop her protection detail. "Ma'am," he started.
"Mab," she corrected. "Mab; please don't call me ma'am. I hate it."
Freddie winced. "… Miss Dumont," he tried instead, and she didn't stop him. "I'm afraid I can't change my team's orders. If you prefer," he offered, seeing her face crack into grief, "I can relay your concerns to my team lead, and maybe we can… pull back the perimeter? It would be easier if you could sync your Stark phone, then-"
She stood, chair scraping against the vintage tile. "Do whatever you want."
"Miss Dumont?" Freddie asked, standing as if to follow. "We're not-" he paused, unsure of what he could say. Could he suggest it, instead? Allow her to draw the best conclusion? "I'm not security for the - for them. We're not here for them."
She looked at him a long time. She hummed, then said something unexpected. "A voice said, look me in the stars. And tell me truly, men of earth, if all the soul-and-body scars were not too much to pay for birth." She reached into her bag and pulled out a collapsible cane, clicking it open and leaning on it slightly. "No offense, but I hope I don't see you again."
Mab's neck was starting to complain about the number of times she checked over her shoulder, but she couldn't believe that the confrontation seemed to have worked. For the first time in months, she couldn't spot her so-called "shadows" in the crowd.
She stood on the first step of the brownstone a long time( just waiting for someone to turn the corner and talk into their wrist, or spend too long tying their shoes, or stare at her through a reflection. And god, they all looked like children.
But she only saw her neighbors, and tourists turned around trying to find the more popular parts of Greenwich, and it was a relief.
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me.
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
"I'm home!" she called into the brownstone, throwing her keys into the bowl.
"Welcome home!" David leaned out into the hall from the kitchen, stirring something vigorously in a large bowl. "How was physical therapy?"
"Good," she murmured, smoothing back hair that had pulled free of her ponytail. "What are you making today?"
David held out the bowl of sticky dough, flecked with herbs, declaring: "bread!"
Mab took a look, nodding thoughtfully. "Looks… rustic?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "Making bread helping you on that mid-Residence interview packet?"
"It's got a lot of Thyme in it!" David answered, deflecting and ducking back into the kitchen.
Mab collapsed her cane and tucked it into her bag, hanging it on a hook. "Where's the packet?" She yelled.
"My desk!" David yelled back.
Idly grabbing some reference books as she went into the heart of the house, setting some old vinyl on the Victrola for background noise, Mab stepped around a sleeping Christine to avoid getting her ankles swiped.
Lights down to just a desk lamp, music drifting softly by, scribbling lines and notes, Mab was at peace.
You can touch the place of my meaning, but you can't hold it. So I hold it; that burning furious beauty. Mab frowned and crossed it out. Not the right tone for a morning interview.
She glanced up as David came down the hall, plate in one hand and tea in the other. "You've been at it for hours, you should take a break."
Mab leaned back in David's office chair, stretching her back. "You can't ignore this stuff forever, you know."
He set down a plate of two slices of warm bread, slathered with butter, on one of the only clear spots of the desk. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
David was expecting her to argue; she could feel it. He wanted her to ask why he'd bothered applying, why he couldn't write, why she did all the work while he baked bread and muffins and took her work to present as his own. He wanted her to complain, to protest, and she just didn't care.
It was fine. She was being useful, and writing poems and speeches and interview notes kept her mind busy. As long as she was useful, she would be wanted. She would be needed as long as the Stark settlement kept paying off the medical debt and paid the rent. She could tolerate the mandatory checkups and physical therapy that the Stark settlement required if it could help keep David happy. He deserved to be happy, and she could give that to him.
"Mab?" David asked gently.
"Did Mariah call? I thought she was sending a courier with another stack for me to edit."
"Tomorrow - they're waiting on a final copy, so the courier comes tomorrow."
"Ok," Mab rubbed at her face, "I want to have this done before the stack arrives. Trying not to fall behind."
"Ok," David said. "Are you coming to the interview? Moral support?"
She shrugged. "If you want me there, sure. Next Tuesday morning, right?"
"It's the super-early show, so we have to be up before the crack of dawn."
"It's fine."
"I'm sorry," David said abruptly. "I'm sorry," he said again, but softer.
Mab smiled softly. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."
He smiled ruefully and patted her shoulder. "You'll find your way. This is just temporary."
the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul
Mab smiled back, even though she didn't feel like it, and hoped it was enough to appease her uncle. "I'm sure you're right."
David checked his watch and did a dramatic double-take. "Seems like you're not the only one who lost track of time! I've got to get going!"
"For what?" Mab asked, glancing at the post-it-note-ridden calendar hanging on the wall. "I didn't think you had anything today."
"Just pre-interview stuff; lighting checks, consultations, you know," he rambled.
She didn't. "Okay - are you home for dinner?"
David mumbled something as he shoved his wallet into his jacket pocket and patted his pockets, looking for keys. "Don't wait up!" he yelled, turning and running down the crowded hallway. The front door slammed behind him, startling Christine from her deep snooze.
The cat yowled, skittered along the hardwood floor and disturbed a precarious pile of books. It fell across the floor as the gray cat fled up the stairs, hissing all the way.
Mab shook her head, twirled her pen in her fingers and went back to trying to write something decent for David's interview.
It was a guess, and not a great one.
Mab couldn't stand listening to the news, so David had to make his notes when she was out, or when she was upstairs. He played it in the kitchen while he baked muffins, or nervously kneaded bread dough, or chewed his fingernails down to the quick.
He had messed up, and it had been almost immediately obvious, realizing just as it was too late to do anything about it. It had taken six months to find the correct combination of celebrity-tracker apps and news stations and social media pings to have a good idea of when the person he needed to see would be walking through those doors.
David checked his phone again, squinting at the cascade of notifications and trying to do the math in his head. Ten minutes? No, wait, that's not right - He looked up, and realized he was already late and needed to run if he had any hope.
Quite a sight, running between cars parked at the intersection and hoping he didn't get run over - he just needed to get to the doors, pull the glass open behind the pair that had just entered -
Quite a sight, that security grabbed him by both arms just as he crossed the threshold of the building, shouting orders that he didn't hear as he yelled at the top of his lungs:
"Captain Rogers!" David bellowed, and the man turned, surprise evident on his face. The redhead with him seemed bemused.
"Steve Rogers!" David continued to yell, even as the guards threatened to taser him if he didn't stop struggling, "I need to talk to you!"
A/N: we love to see people trying to fix their mistakes.
Shorter chapter here, but it's more just bringing us up to speed on some things.