Between the Lines

The Price of Power

          Hank Pym, to put it delicately, was a pompous ass. He had reminded me so much of Odin in the few moments I had interacted with him; far too confident in his plans, blinded by his sense of duty. A feeling that both Barton and Stark seemed to agree with.

    "He's going to get us all killed. Putting tech like that in the hands of civilians."

    "Fury does it every day."

    "Can Fury's tech shrink things to the size of a molecule; blow shit up to the size of buildings?"

    "I get your frustration, Tony, I feel it too, but what do you expect us to do? If Hank doesn't want us to look into this, we can't exactly do so."

    "The hell we can't," Stark fumed as I helped Eibhlin buckle into her seat in the back of the quinjet.

    "We don't even know what was taken, Tony," Eibhlin called out gently as she helped me into my seat beside her. "What if it truly was nothing of value or consequence?"

    "Hank doesn't play like that, Evie. He's been living off grid playing mad scientist in his basement the last twenty-six years to make sure no one could use his formula for weapons. It was a smart move, I won't lie, seeing as dear old dad was responsible for Midnight Oil, Nitramene, and Constrictor and had a rather insidious history of allowing his inventions to fall into the wrong hands; a trait that I sort of inherited."

    "So it's not just all of that ego Pepper mentioned after all," I smirked.

    "No, most of it is. It's also a certain type of naivety. We tend to trust the wrong people."

    "I don't think that's just a you thing, Tony. I mean... We all trusted Fury, and tonight's dinner sort of solidified that we probably shouldn't have; even if Nat and Steve did help him to out all of the HYDRA Agents lurking in the shadows."

    "HYDRA?"

    "Oh, right, you two don't know anything about that, do you? Does Pointbreak?" Stark made a humming sound as he thought it over. After a shrug and Barton's skillful takeoff, he spun his seat around to face us. "So, HYDRA was like the Anti-SHIELD. Instead of trying to save the world, they wanted to enslave it, sort of."

    "Who was its leader?"

    "That's sort of a tough answer to give, Evie. HYDRA wasn't HYDRA until around the time Cap came to be Cap; it was originally this... Do you know what a cult is?"

    "Yes, it is a young male horse."

    "No, Ms. Eibhlin. Mr. Stark does not mean a colt, he is asking if you are aware of what a cult- c,u,l,t- is." Eibhlin frowned, her brow crinkling forward as she shook her head. "It is usually a private organization dedicated to the direct devotion and veneration toward a person or object, usually with nefarious purpose."

    "Like Malekith?"

    "Precisely."

    Stark shrugged. "I'm not completely up to date on all this Malekith stuff, but sure; yeah. Anyway, at some point the cult became a part of the Nazi regime-"

    "What are Nazis?"

    Stark blinked at Eibhlin and me for a moment before exhaling heavily. "I need a whiteboard for this... Uh, how much time do we have? The Nazis were a group of people who believed that only a certain type of person was, as you Asgardians like to put it, worthy. They were a sort of cult too, only they grew to be an entire political party that just kept expanding and ultimately led to a pretty major genocidal war. Rogers could explain all of this better, he lived through it."

    That seemed to take Eibhlin by surprise, though it was something I had already known thanks to The Other and the Mad Titan. I could see the realization wash over her then as it set in that the teasing comments and nicknames had been rooted in something more all along. "Is Steve the only one left?"

    Stark and Clint exchanged a small glance. "Uh, all but two, maybe three, of the people he knew from back then are dead, most passed before Cap was thawed out of the ice." Her hand slid into mine at this news. Rogers could have beaten her just like Roar had and she still would have felt bad upon hearing that he was alone in the world. It was just her way; she never wanted anyone to feel the way she had for so long. "That's sort of what our fight was about... All that secrecy, the run to Maryland, all the lies... They all revolve around a possible link to Rogers."

    "Another soldier out of time," I asked, somewhat skeptically.

    "Something like that."

    Her hand tightened around mine and I knew what she was about to say next without even reading her mind. "We're going to help him find this Winter Soldier, aren't we?"

    I stared at her profile, her brow furrowed, lips parted ever so slightly as if begging Stark to say yes. He sighed, his hand coming out to gently pat her shoulder. "Yeah... Yeah, I guess we are; no matter how much I don't like it."

    "Afraid of a little more competition, Stark," I teased, trying to ease the tension; a practically unheard-of occurrence for someone such as myself.

    He smirked right back and shook his head. "There is no competition. I'm more nervous about bringing another unstable, villain-coded individual into the fold... Especially one I'm not sure wants to be reformed."

    Again, Eibhlin's hand tightened around mine. I hadn't even felt the frown form on my face until I looked over at her and saw it reflected in her eyes. She leaned over, her shoulder touching mine; the only contact we could manage in these stupid jump seats. The flight home was mostly silent after that, though not as silent as the walk into the compound was. Everyone else had long gone to bed, or so it seemed. As we entered the darkened hangar though, a light clicked on and there stood the Soldier, concern on his face.

    "Rumlow's escaped," was all he said.

    I remembered that name. The man who had come along to help collect the scepter from Stark and the others after I had failed in New York three years prior. As far as I had known he had been just another goon under Fury's command; from the way Barton and Stark reacted to this news, that didn't seem to be the case.

    "Any idea where he's headed?"

    Rogers shook his head at Stark, the two commanders brainstorming as the rest of us followed closely behind. "All I was told was that he escaped sometime this morning. He decked a nurse..."

    "Nurse is alright though?"

    "Hasn't he been in a coma for a year?"

    "Eight months. Nurse'll survive. Fury wants us scanning for him. How'd your outing go?"

    "Barton, see if you can pull up Rumlow's old file from the SHIELD database to use for facial recognition scanning; trip went fine, Cap. Nothing to worry about."

    "Simple recovery mission or false alarm?"

    "Bit of both. Jem, Reindeer Games; got a favor."

    "How can we help?"

    "For starters, you can get some rest. Tomorrow, you're going to be bouncing a few of us back and forth between here and a few places so we can find out exactly what's going on with Rumlow and keep tabs on a few other things."

    "You can't take your accursed jet for that?"

    "It's spoken for. Evie, I want you to open a portal to D.C. tomorrow morning; Barton, phone home and let the wife know you're needed for a few extra days. After that, you can start your retirement."

    "You're leaving us?" Eibhlin's voice sounded so broken as she turned to face Barton, her disappointment clear as day.

    "Uh, yeah. It was something I talked with Fury about already. After everything that happened in Sokovia, and with three kids, I just-"

    "I understand," Eibhlin sighed, chewing at her bottom lip. "Will you still visit?"

    "I'm still an agent, just not a field one anymore. More of a consultant."

    "Just when I was starting to like you."

    He chuckled softly, shaking his head at me. "Yeah, same."

    "Tears can be shed later, we have plans to make," Stark muttered, looking over his network of floating screens he had popped out of his phone once more. "Reindeer Games, while Evie is getting Nat and the good Captain here to D.C. I need you to teleport Barton back to Hank's place; Legolas, you're running point on watching that house and seeing if our boy does in fact return. And if he does, I want to know what it is he took in the first place."

    "And you'll be doing what exactly?"

    "Recruiting. There's a couple of individuals running around in spandex with some impressive powers that I need to have a word with." He walked off after that, leaving the rest of us to nervously glance at one another. This would either be a good thing or a horrific decision of disastrous proportions.