Alexander Pierce was not who he said he was. At least that's the feeling Freya got when she first laid eyes on him. She couldn't pinpoint what it was about him but she knew he couldn't be trusted.
Perhaps it was the way he looked at her, not in the way that some men looked at her, that she was unfortunately used to. Pierce looked at her like she was a weapon, something to be controlled. Like he missed the days when S.H.I.E.L.D. still had her locked in the basement.
"Oh, Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce" he said, shaking Steve's hand.
"Sir, it's an honor" Steve replied.
"The honor's mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st" he said before turning to Freya. "Ah, the Goddess of Love and War. I don't know whether to shake your hand or bow."
"You should do neither," she told him.
Pierce just smiled at her in a way that made her want to punch him in the face. "Come on in," he said, leading them inside. Steve spotted a picture on his desk of Pierce and Fury before Fury lost his eye.
"That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met when I was at State Department in Bogota. E.L.N rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was Deputy Chief of the S.H.I.E.L.D. station there and he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, no we'll negotiate. Turned out the E.L.N. didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They storm the basement and what do they find? They find it empty" Pierce told them as they all sat down.
"Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil, and saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter," he said.
"So you gave him a promotion?" Steve asked.
"I've never had any cause to regret it," Pierce said. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"
Steve shook his head. "I don't know."
"Did you know it was bugged?" Pierce asked.
"I did, because Nick told me," Steve said.
"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Pierce asked.
"Why would he do that?" Freya asked. Pierce looked over at her like he was annoyed to hear her speaking.
"Well, Freya, I don't know how you do things up on Asgard but here on Earth, we don't like secrets," he said.
"I've spent quite a lot of time on this realm, I have a very good understanding of how you do things," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Then you should know it took quite a bit of convincing on my part not to have charged for your part in what took place in New York," he said.
"My actions were not my own," she told him.
"No, no. Of course not" he said, staring at her before he grabbed a remote, turning on a screen behind them.
It was Batroc, the French pirate who hijacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. ship, sitting in an interrogation room. "Who hired you Batroc?" the interrogator asked.
"Is that live?" Steve asked.
"Yeah, they picked him up last night in not so safe house in Algiers," Pierce said.
"You think he's the one who killed Fury?" Freya asked.
"Assassination isn't Batroc's line," Steve said.
"No, no. It's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star. And he was contacted by email and paid by wire transfer, and then the money was run through 17 fictitious accounts. The last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech" Pierce said, handing them a file.
"Are we supposed to know who that is?" Steve asked.
"Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick, his mother lived at 1437" Pierce said.
"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?" Steve asked.
"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death" he said.
Steve shook his head, not even giving himself a second to think that was true. "If you really knew Nick Fury, you'd know that's not true," he said.
Pierce nodded, seeming to agree with him. "Why do you think we're talking?" he asked, standing up.
"See I took a seat on the council not because I wanted to, but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that, despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really really angry."
Daphne and Steve stood up as Pierce looked at them like they were the ones who couldn't be trusted.
"You two were the last ones to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident. And I don't think you do, either. So, I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"
"He told us not to trust anyone," Steve told him.
"I wonder if that included him," Pierce said.
"I'm sorry," Steve said. "Those were his last words. Excuse us."
As Freya and Steve turned to walk out of Pierce's office, he called out to them right before they walked through the door.
"Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it. Anyone" he said.
Leaving his office they made their way to the elevator, only speaking once they were inside.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked.
"He thinks I had something to do with it," Freya said. "After what happened with Loki-"
"None of that was your fault," he said.
"I don't think he sees it that way. I know what he thinks of me. And Thor. That we're just aliens who came to your planet with our problems. Maybe he's right" she sighed.
"Hey," he said, grabbing her hand. "He's not. And any one else in their right mind would know that's not true. New York wouldn't be standing today if it wasn't for you two."
Before Freya could say anything else, the doors opened again as Rumlow and a few other agents walked in. Steve and Freya pulled away from each other, not realizing Rumlow had already seen them holding hands.
"Keep all STRIKE personnel on site," Rumlow said before telling the elevator to take him to forensics.
Rumlow just nodded at them and they nodded back not in the mood to speak. But as the elevator began moving, Rumlow turned to them.
"Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac team ready?" he asked.
"No, let's wait and see what it is first," Steve said.
"Right," Rumlow nodded and turned back around. Looking down Steve could see that one of the agents had a hand over the gun on his holster, like he was expecting a fight soon.
The elevator stopped as more agents walked in and Steve and Freya squeezed closer together.
"I'm sorry about what happened to Fury," Rumlow said quietly. "It's messed up what happened to him."
"That's very kind of you," Freya said, glancing to her side and saw one of the agents mumbling to himself, a bead of sweat trickling down his head.
Steve and Freya looked at each other and gave a slight nod, understanding they were being ambushed.
"Before we get started," Steve said, "does anyone want to get out?"
Suddenly, the man right in front of them turned around with an electric baton in his hand. Steve kicked it away, dealing with the men on the left while Freya took the right.
She grabbed one agent's hand, snapping his wrist as he screamed in pain and dropped his baton.
Picking it up she turned it on, shoving it into the side of a man behind her. Someone grabbed her from behind, trying to use a magnetic brace to pin her arms to the wall.
Grunting she shoved the man back, banging his head on the wall. With only one hand, she kicked up, knocking another one to the floor. When she finally got her hand free she used the electric baton to knock out the other agent.
The doors opened again as dozens of agents in tactical gear stood there, guns pointed right at them.
"Drop the weapons and put your hands in the air" they shouted.
"Hold on," Steve said, as he used his shield to cut through the wires and set them plummeting down. But with the elevator's safety measures, they stopped a few floors down, in between the levels.
Pushing the doors open they saw more agents running down the hall and he quickly pulled them back closed.
Freya turned and gestured toward the glass walls that the elevator was made of. "Steve!" she shouted.
Understanding what she meant, he nodded. Using his shield to break the glass, Freya grabbed onto him as they jumped out, her cape keeping them in the air until they landed safely on the ground.
Seeing other agents headed toward them, Steve gestured for her to follow him as they ran toward the garage.
Hopping on his bike with Freya sitting right behind him, Steve revved the engine before he sped off toward the exit.
The doors began closing but Steve pushed it and sent them flying through moments before it could clamp down on them.
A quinjet took off from the building, hovering in front of them as they tried to block them from leaving.
"Stand down," the pilot said through the speakers. "Stand down."
The gun below the jet sprang out and was aimed right toward them. "Steve! Get underneath it!" Freya shouted.
"What are you gonna do?" he asked, speeding up.
Freya didn't respond as she took out her sword, cutting through the belly of the jet like it was butter.
Steve sped up, barely getting out of the way as the jet spun out of control and crash-landed on the ground.
─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
After sneaking into the hospital's lost and found, Steve and Freya changed into some more inconspicuous clothes.
As they walked to the vending machine, Steve panicked as he looked at her. "It's not here," he said.
"What's not here?" she asked.
"The flash drive. I hid it in here" he said.
Suddenly Natasha's reflection popped up in the glass, chewing on a piece of gum.
With a glare on his face, Steve turned around, pulling Natasha into an empty room with Freya following them.
"Where is it?" he asked.
"Safe" Natahsa responded.
"Do better" he said.
"Steve" Freya said, pulling him away from her.
"Where did you get it?" Natasha asked.
"Why would I tell you?" Steve asked.
"Fury gave it to you. Why?" she asked.
"Do you know what's on it?" Freya asked.
"No," Natasha said.
"Stop lying!" Steve hissed.
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers" Natasha said.
"Stop i! You're both acting like children!" Freya snapped before turning back to Natasha. "Did you know Fury hired the pirates?"
"Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty. Fury needed a way in, so do you" Natasha said.
"Natasha-"
"I know who killed Fury," Natasha said.
"Who?" Freya asked.
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years" Natasha said.
"So he's a ghost story?" Steve asked.
"Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out. But the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer so he shot him, straight through me" Natasha said, lifting up her shirt and showing them the deep tissue scar right above her waist. "Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye, bikinis."
"What's a bikini?" Freya asked.
"Oh, I'd think you'd look great in 'em. Right, Steve?" Natasha smirked.
Steve didn't say anything, a slight blush on his cheeks as he glanced at the wall behind them.
"Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried" Natasha said, holding up the flash drive. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."
Taking the flash drive, Steve looked at the two women, a new mission in his hand. "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants."