Wouldn't Leave You (A Captain America Fan fiction)

Locations and Surprises

Chapter 30 - Rachel Stark

"We will finish this conversation later," Steve says as he opens the door. I get out of the car and slam the door angrily. Steve and I make our way around the front of the car, looking around the vacant lot of land. An old, rusty fence restricts our access to the place. We walk closer and I catch a glimpse of the sign that is hung on it. 

Camp Lehigh

I scan it, reading the sign to try to figure out why the name sounds familiar. 

"How is this possible?" he asks from behind me. I turn to him, glancing down at my phone to check the location. 

"The file came from these coordinates." I say curtly, shrugging my shoulders in frustration.

"So did I." Steve says. My eyes snap up in recognition. Camp Lehigh. Of course. This place was all over his files. This was his home base. I make eye contact with him, watching as his eyes glaze over. 

"We should wait for nightfall. There may still be some sort of security system set up." I say, making my way back to the car. Steve follows, shutting the door as he gets in. We wait in silence for the sun to go down. It doesn't take long, we arrived at dusk. 

Once the world is a shade of deep purple, we hop out of the truck and slowly climb the fence, making sure we don't cut ourselves on the barbed wire at the top. Once we make it to the other side, I pull out my phone, searching for any energy source. We walk around, checking all of the buildings and making our way around the run-down base. 

"Change much?" I question as I wave my hand around the last building. 

"A little," he mumbles. I take another quick scan of the surrounding buildings, finding nothing.  

"This is a dead-end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." I put my phone down in defeat. I take a quick look around, looking over Steve's old stomping grounds. "You know, I don't know much about your time here. I mean, I know what I've read and what I saw in the museum, but you don't talk about it much. I'd like to hear about it sometime." I watch as Steve's head flicks to a nearby building that I already scanned. His gaze is fixed, his face working out something. "What is it?"

Steve marches straight to the building, not looking back.

"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks." I jog to catch up to him, trying to keep up. He keeps his eyes fixed on the doors of the building, almost not noticing as I come up behind him. "This building is in the wrong place." He uses his shield to break the lock.

"Hot," I say out loud. I slap my hand over my mouth, my eyes filling with shock. I looked over at him, panicked by my sudden outburst. Steve has a small goofy smile on his face as he pulls open the door for me. I step into the building and wait over to the side, letting the man with the indestructible shield walk down the steps first. He takes the lead, stealthily moving down the stairs with his shield up. At the bottom, there is a big switch, which Steve clicks on. There is a long pause before anything happens. 

Suddenly, the lights click on, revealing rows of desks lining the sides of the room. The desks are adorned with a few scattered papers and typewriters. Some desks have phones while others are just stacked with boxes. On the back wall, an early version of the S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol. 

"This is S.H.I.E.L.D," I say in awe. I turn my head from side to side, taking it all in. This was the beginning.

"Maybe where it all started," he says, almost reading my mind. I look over to him, scanning his features. He quickly juts his chin towards a side office, turning my attention away from the main room. I walk over towards it slowly, still in awe by the origins of such a massive organization.