▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝘼𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉 𝙈𝙊𝙑𝙄𝙀.
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍: Parasite Lost
𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐎𝐍, 𝐃.𝐂. ─ 𝐀𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐗
𝟏𝟎 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟒
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
☆
Shock reminded Lizzie Carter of one of those white rooms in solitary confinement, and the only noise you could hear was the static from an old television buzzing loudly in your ears. She felt exactly that as she sat on the steps of her apartment complex, curled into the tightest ball she could possibly imagine while police and other sirens woke anyone trying to sleep that night. Her eyes squinted every so often, trying to adjust to the blinding light, but it was hard to see anything.
What she did see was the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives rush Fury's dying body out in a gurney, and then the police cars and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents race into the apartment complex and completely fly by her like she wasn't there. Lizzie remembered how many times Sharon kept shooting looks her way, trying to talk to her a few times in between briefings with other agents that kept arriving. She remembered seeing Steve, quickly, and the look of utter betrayal he shot her. He did not once come up to her, but instead turned in the opposite direction to the hospital. But all of it was static noise.
She only broke free of the half-conscious daze when Sharon crouched directly in front of her, gripping her chin to gain her attention. Her lips were moving, but Lizzie didn't catch any of it. Her sister had changed clothes. The bloody scrubs from Fury were replaced with her usual S.H.I.E.L.D. attire now. When did that happen? Lizzie was still wearing her t-shirt and shorts. Her body, shivering from the cold. She wasn't even wearing shoes.
"What?" she finally asked, and then just like altitude pressure, her ears popped and she was back into the reality of what was going on. The sirens were deafening, the chatter of all the people making her head start to ache, and she only just barely saw Sharon. "What did you say?"
Sharon's eyes flickered in concern over her facial features. "I said, I need you to come with me to SHIELD."
"What?" Lizzie asked, looking at her sister disturbed. "No."
"You're not saying here, and I need to go back to the Triskelion."
Lizzie didn't want to. Her lip trembled, and she quickly turned her head to ignore the build-up of tears that were threatening to spill again. Without looking at Sharon, she nodded reluctantly. She'd given up on the fight a few minutes ago—or hours ago. She wasn't sure. The time of day had disappeared after she walked into the apartment. Everything happened quickly. Sharon's coms went off, and before she even had the chance to explain anything or understand, Steve was racing off after the person who shot straight through his apartment wall at Director Fury.
Fury, whose body she saw lying in his own pool of blood. Lizzie's mind was already building up its brick wall of the image, and she flinched the minute her memory reminded her of the sight. The drive to the Triskelion was silent. She just watched as the police lights disappeared the further they drove away until they were gone completely. The sunrise replaced them, and she realized then just how long it had actually been since everything happened. How long had she been sitting on those steps?
"Lizzie, I need you to tell me if you're okay."
Sharon's question fell on deaf ears. Lizzie did not reply, only stared blankly ahead until they pulled into the Triskelion. She got out of the car without much protest, glancing down at her feet. She didn't remember putting on shoes either, but they were now there. She didn't remember a lot of the things that she did in the last few hours. Sharon got to the front door of S.H.I.E.L.D. and scanned in, and just like that, the quiet morning erupted into chaos the moment they entered. What used to feel like Disneyland felt like a circus now.
"—killed him."
"That's a ghost story—"
"I can't believe Director Fury—"
"He's dead."
Lizzie was just blindly following behind Sharon by now, and it wasn't until she was walking into a room that she realized where she was being guided. Instantly, Monroe stood up and walked over to them, exhausted and heavy with emotion. His eyes were on Lizzie as she stared at the ground and his frown deepened when he noticed how shaken up she was. He turned to Sharon, his jaw tightening when she gave him a pleading look, her hand holding onto Lizzie's arm.
"I need you to watch her for me."
Monroe didn't protest, just reached to grab a hold of Lizzie, his eyes still on Sharon as she turned around. "Where are you going?"
"Pierce requested to speak with me for a debriefing," she explained, and then she paused before she left. Turning back briefly, she let her eyes fall on her little sister before landing on him. "You don't let her leave your sight, you hear me? If you can't reach me, call Agent Mayfield. She's leaving the hospital right now. Watch her."
"I will."
Sharon disappeared out the door after that, leaving Monroe behind with Lizzie. Already, he could feel the air in the room be sucked out of all its life. Slowly, he walked over to where she was standing so that he could look at her. Her body was shivering, whether she knew it or not, but he was unsure if it was from her clothes or the shock. Both, he presumed. Her hair was a mess, ponytail half undone, and her fingers desperately clutched the metal chain around her neck with two dog tags on it.
Her disheveled appearance did not compare to the look in her eyes when she finally raised her head. Lizzie always had some of the brightest eyes, even in their brown hue. A determined spark was always set in them, always eager. Always ready for more. They were dead now. They had lost their spark, and there was nothing staring back at him in that moment but absolute pain.
"Lizzie—"
She flinched. "Agent Three."
"Agent Three," he tried again, watching her. "You need to sit down."
Lizzie listened to him for once. She moved to grab one of the chairs she'd been taught so many lessons in, and then when she was finally given the opportunity to stop, the lack of adrenaline hit her hard. Her body trembled, pain erupting down her spine and echoing like a bullet wound in her shoulder. She had not been hit, but it felt like the biggest wound she'd ever received. Her chest hurt. Clutching it did nothing when the pain was internal.
"He knows."
Monroe stilled, looking at her. "What?"
"Steve," she muttered, her voice dead of any emotion. She glanced up to look at Monroe. "He knows."
Monroe didn't know everything. In fact, he knew the absolute bare minimum about why Lizzie was at S.H.I.E.L.D., but he could tell in those two words that her whole world had just come crashing down around her. He didn't how to fix that for her. Not when he could see the importance that Steve Rogers had in her life simply in the way she spoke about him. With his hands tightening into fists, he glanced down at his wrist bracelet and then he moved over to where Lizzie was sitting. Taking a spot on top of the table next to one another, they sat there.
Lizzie wasn't for sure how long. Her perception of time in the last few hours had been completely off. Long enough for her to process her emotions on what was happening, but not nearly long enough for her to accept any of it. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the loud, boisterous sound of something shattering below them. Both her and Monroe shot up, alarmed, and looked at each other instantly. Then, after a few moments of waiting for another sound, they heard an alarm ring throughout the building and the sounds of heavy shooting right after.
He pointed his finger at her. "You stay here."
"But—"
"You. Stay. Here."
With that, he ran out of the door and left her alone in the conference room. Lizzie waited approximately thirteen seconds before she was darting to the door after him, frustrated at first when she realized that Monroe had locked her inside—but then, her eyes traveled to the back of the room that Monroe had entered from on the first day of classes. The spark that had been missing from before returned, and she darted to the back, bursting through the door that he had forgotten to lock.
The moment she was out into the hallway, she noticed that there were agents breezing past her in the corridors that she had never seen before. No one ever came this way. She kept up with the crowd, trying to blend in as much as possible (in her Nike shorts and t-shirt). In the end, she ended up following a group of agents to a large room that she'd never seen before, where a lot of computer screens were set up for people in suits to control. Sharon was going to murder her.
Lizzie stayed in the back, hidden as much as she could be, and she felt her life flash before her eyes when she realized that both Sharon and Carson were standing in the center of the room. Her sister looked concerned, glancing around anxiously and making sure she did not move too far away from Carson, who looked just as pale and upset as her counterpart. Then, Lizzie's attention was directed to the front where she saw another familiar face. Sitwell.
"Eyes here," he called to everyone in the room, directing their time to him. All of the blood in Lizzie's body ran cold, and she backed up a few steps into the stone wall when she saw what was displaying on the large screen in front of everyone. Steve Rogers—her Steve—with his face plastered like he was a criminal. The urge to vomit hit her like a freight train.
"Whatever your op is, bury it. This is Level One. Contact DOT. All traffic lights in the district go red. Shut all runways at BWI, IAD and Reagan. All security cameras in the city go through this monitor, right here. Scan all open sources. Phones, computers, PDAs, whatever. If someone tweets about this guy, I want to know about it."
Lizzie only felt sicker when she heard her sister speak up. "With all due respect, if SHIELD is conducting a manhunt for Captain America, we deserve to know why."
"Because he lied to us," said a new voice, coming into the room. She didn't recognize him, but the following of people that made room for his presence said everything it needed to. "Captain Rogers has information regarding the death of Director Fury, he refused to share it. As difficult as this is to accept, Captain America is a fugitive from SHIELD."
He was a what?
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
"I'm going to kill you. I am literally going to wring your neck—"
Lizzie scowled at Monroe from across the room, feeling similar to how a child felt when they were caught disobeying their bedtime. He was glaring at her so much that the vein in his forehead popped out, but not even Lionel could distract her from what she had just seen. Monroe had caught her hiding in the back before anyone noticed her, nearly ripping her good arm out of socket to drag her all the way back to the room they'd been in before. The entire way, her blood boiled, anger and confusion coursing through her.
She pointed at the door. "What was that out there? Why are they after Steve, Monroe? They think he has something to do with what happened to Fury? He would never—"
"Shut up. Seriously. Shut up for one second."
Monroe raised his finger at her, glaring, but before he could do anything more or she could ask anymore questions, the door that Lizzie was positive he locked that time opened. He whirled his head around quickly, Lizzie's heart skipping a beat as she wondered who would walk through the door. When both of them recognized the person, Monroe's shoulders dropped and he glared at Carson Mayfield. She pulled the door two, looking between them.
"I locked that," he said, bluntly.
Carson looked at Monroe like he was an idiot. "You do you what I do here, right?"
"Well, great. Now that you're here, maybe you can babysit Harry Houdini over here," he jeered, sticking his thumb over his shoulder and glaring at Lizzie when he turned around. She crossed her arms over her chest, now meeting with Carson's stare. "Agent Thirteen put me in charge of watching over her, and she's already gotten out once."
"You're an idiot for thinking she wouldn't," and then Carson walked past Monroe, letting the concern rise on her face when she knew her coworker couldn't see her. She quickly inspected Lizzie from head to toe. "Are you okay?"
"You're joking, right?" Lizzie spluttered, gaping at the woman like she was crazy. "You guys just put a death sentence over Steve's head, Carson! Fury is dead and everyone is acting like it's his fault!"
Carson nodded along to her words while Monroe threw his hands up in the air, muttering incessantly with his hands going in his unkempt hair.
"I know. I know, Lizzie. I just...I need you to listen, okay? Listen to me—" Lizzie paused when she noticed the look in Carson's eyes, especially when the blonde woman stood up straighter. She turned slightly to glance back at Monroe. "I'll watch her. They're going to need your help."
Monroe stopped in his pacing footsteps. He looked between the two of them, stopping for a moment with hesitation shining on his face, then he nodded. Lizzie watched as he disappeared out the door which had been previously locked, and the moment that he was gone, Carson's shoulders dropped and she grabbed a hold of Lizzie's hand. Before she could open her mouth to ask any questions, she was being dragged out of the conference room and down the hallway to where Carson's office was—she figured that out after a few turns.
When the door shut, and Lizzie noticed that Carson locked the door behind her, she glanced around the room in confusion. "Carson, why is everyone dragging me around everywhere? What—"
"Can you get in contact with Rogers?"
Lizzie's eyes widened. "What?"
"Lizzie," her voice was too hard, too serious. She stepped forward, looking painfully terrifying and hard-faced. "I know you. Is there any way for you to get in contact with Rogers right now?"
"I—"
Lizzie stopped herself from saying no. She paused, and then she glanced down at her shorts, her hands slowly going down to reach into the pocket of them to pull something out that she'd forgotten she grabbed from the apartment in the chaos. Along with shoes, she must have grabbed something else. Carson stared at what she just pulled out, her blue eyes spiking with hope and a small echo of relief escaped her.
"I...we have these," she said quietly, glancing at the flip phone in her hand. "I gave him one for Christmas. I made sure that it was untraceable, like you taught me...he might not even have it on him, Carson—"
Carson grabbed a hold of the phone, flipping it open. "But he might. Listen to me. Tell him a STRIKE team is on their way to him. Find out where he is—"
Red flags went off inside of her head, and she paused, looking at Carson.
"Why? If he's safe—"
"But he's not safe, Lizzie. Monroe is about to figure out exactly where he is. You need to warn him, tell him that a STRIKE team is going to be at his location the moment he sets that damn thing off that he left in the stupid vending machine at the hospital."
What thing? Lizzie went to ask the question, but she decided that it might be best not to know the answer right now. Reluctantly, she glanced down at the phone again. Then, she nodded slowly. Sure, the phones were technically for that purpose, but she never thought they would actually be for that purpose. Her fingers moved to the one contact in her phone, and what she expected to find humor in only brought grief in her heart. How could he even trust a word she sent to him anymore?
"Carson, he won't listen to me," she said quietly, staring at the contact name. "Not after—"
"He'll listen to you, Lizzie."
"He won't—"
Carson grabbed her hand, squeezing it so she'd look up. "He'll listen."
Her eyes burnt with unshed tears. She began to fiddle with the phone, trying to quickly figure out how text on it so that she could sent out a message. It was brief. Short because she had the faintest of feelings that he did not even have the phone she'd given him on his person: "YOU'RE NOT SAFE. ON THEIR WAY. GO. NOW." With those words embedded into her brain, she swallowed the growing lump in her throat..and before she could stop herself, she sent another text right after the first one.
I'm sorry.
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐎𝐍, 𝐃.𝐂. — 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋
Steve Rogers was used to a fight, but it never got easier. The flashdrive that Fury had given him right before his death felt even heavier in his hands after the man died. Natasha Romanoff was to his right, the two of them trying to walk as casually as possible through the mall in D.C. without too many prying eyes. That meant civilian clothing. Natasha had a hoodie expertly hiding her red hair, jeans and a pair of shoes that were definitely not suited for their job occupation. All of her clothes had been borrowed from a store rack.
Steve, on the other hand, needed much less to complete his look. Natasha shot him a look when he threw a navy hat over his head he'd had on his motorcycle and a softball hoodie that fit a little snug. The only thing he needed was a new pair of shoes, jeans, and some glasses that Nat claimed 'finished the alias'. But he froze the moment he felt a vibration in the pocket of his blue jeans.
"In here."
Natasha muttered to Steve, going directly toward the Apple store. She was unaware that Steve's pace had gotten slower, and only when she noticed that he was standing in the middle of the path with his eyes set on an old, flip phone did she turn around. Her jaw clenched and she grabbed his elbow, easing him into the store so that she could make her way to one of the many different laptops.
Steve, on the other hand, was plenty distracted by the text message he'd just received. Two new messages from: BLINDSPOT appeared in a little mailbox, and he felt his heart clench inside of his chest. Part of him—the part that was hurt—wanted to smash the phone underneath his foot. But Steve knew he never would, and he knew he never could regardless of what he tried to convince himself. He had the phone on him for a reason. He was wearing her clothes for a reason.
Reluctantly, he pressed the text.
YOU'RE NOT SAFE. ON THEIR WAY. GO. NOW.
I'm sorry.
"Did you hear me?"
Steve had to separate his head from his heart, clearing his throat and turning to Natasha. She looked at him like he had three heads. Her eyes flickered down to the phone before going back to him. "What?"
"I said, the drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up SHIELD will know exactly where we are," she said, her hands already preparing for when she had to put in the flash drive. When Steve's eyes flashed in realization and he glanced back down at his phone, she assumed. "Why do you have that?"
Steve frowned, his face hardening as he put the phone back in his pocket. "Doesn't matter. It can't be tracked. How much time do we have?"
Her eyes narrowed, but she decided not to say anything about it for now. Instead, she just moved back to the job she had to do. "About nine minutes to..." she pushed the drive in and the laptop booted to life. "Now."
Unbeknownst to them that the person who would find their location was Agent Ian Monroe himself.
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
"Where did Captain American learn how to steal a car?"
Steve and Natasha were on the road now to New Jersey, a location that Steve had burned into his brain ever since 1945, in hopes to find out why the flash drive was leading him to Camp Lehigh. For the most part, the conversations had been quiet. Neither one of them engaged in too much talk with one another, especially with Steve still trying to wrap his head around absolutely everything that just happened back at the mall—not just the text message he'd received on his secret spy phone, but also the kiss from the woman sitting next to him.
"Nazi Germany," he said, then scowled over at her, "and we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash."
Natasha's smirk only grew, knowingly, and she tilted her head in his direction as she slid her feet off the dashboard of the truck. "Alright, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"
Steve sighed, wishing she would get to the point. "What?"
"Was that your first kiss since nineteen-forty-five?" she asked, her smile only getting wider.
"That bad, huh?"
"I didn't say that."
Steve shifted around, his ego taking a bit of a hit at the connotation behind her words. "Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying."
"No, I didn't," she protested. "I was just wondering how much practice you've had."
"You don't need practice."
"Everyone needs practice."
"It was not my first kiss since nineteen-forty-five. I'm ninety-five. I'm not dead."
There was a brief pause between the two of them after their back-and-forth bickering. Steve could not ignore the burning feeling starting to arise. Conversations like this, banter like this, was something special to him with MJ—and he hated that his thoughts continued to go back to her when she was was the one person he expected to trust, and not even that could happen.
"Nobody special, though?" Natasha asked after a moment, her eyes staying on him.
Steve scoffed at the thought. "Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experiences."
"Well, that's alright, you just make something up."
"What, like you?" he asked, glancing over at her.
"I don't know. The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time," she explained quietly, never once raising her voice out of its comfortable state. "Neither am I."
"That's a tough way to live."
"It's a good way not to die, though," she said, softly.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel, the first thing coming to his mind falling out of his mouth. "You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't really know who that someone is."
"Speaking from personal experience?"
Steve froze. All of the red flags went off in his brain, and he turned his head to look at her with the hardest of expressions Natasha had ever seen on the man. "Did you know?"
"Know what?"
"About her."
"About who?"
"Don't play with me, Natasha—" he snapped, frustrated at the game she was playing.
"I knew of her," she finally gave in, glancing ahead at the road instead of watching Steve's anger rise at her left. "Barton called me a few weeks ago. He was worried about Fury bringing someone in that shouldn't have been brought in. He said she was young, wanted me to look after the situation for him. I connected the dots after hearing you talk about her. Didn't add up, so I looked around a bit for more information."
Steve knew that MJ was involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. now. It was impossible for her to not be, with her sister being an agent there. That didn't mean he understood everything. He could be mad at Kate—Agent Thirteen—but there was a blockage in between his trust issues and the thirteen-year-old girl. Something inside of him could not be mad, no matter how hard he tried. All he felt was betrayed. Hurt.
"And?" he asked reluctantly, biting the word out.
Natasha sighed. "Fury kept her out of the system as much as he could. You can't find her in the system if you aren't looking for her. Her real name is Elizabeth. Lizzie, for short. She's from Brooklyn, and Agent Thirteen is really her sister. She plays softball. Smart. Her grades are all A's. She turned thirteen October first, and Fury brought her in as an associate—"
Steve's jaw tightened, flaring in anger. "He brought in a thirteen-year-old into SHIELD—"
"To help her sister with a surveillance mission. Over you."
A million and one thoughts were racing through Steve's mind at the moment. Even more emotions resurfaced over and over again, threatening to disrupt his focus on the mission ahead of him. Above all, he fought the most with two—(one) that he should have known better. He watched her every move, every single day, and all of the signs were there. The attentiveness, her reflexes getting stronger, her getting stronger. The callouses on her hands, the way she always tried to be faster. Steve's hands threatened to break the steering wheel as he realized another thing—that must be the secret she was keeping. The one she was trying to tell him at the Smithsonian.
(Two) Steve was so unbearably, utterly, and incredibly infuriated that Fury would allow her to even be apart of anything like this—because that meant she had to lie to him. Steve could feel the nagging feeling rage in his brain. Natasha's information didn't help with that. All he could think about was how she didn't lie about everything. The war continued to fight inside of his head, a part of him wanting to pull out his phone to make sure that she was alright and the other part of him not wanting to trust her with anything ever again.
"It was her who texted you, wasn't it?" The weight in his pocket felt heavier. "What did she say?"
He pressed his teeth together tightly. "She warned me about the STRIKE team coming."
"Oh," was all Natasha said at first. Then, she paused again. "So she's inside of SHIELD."
"I guess so."
Steve was finished having the conversation with her about MJ—about Lizzie—and Natasha could see that. She was a sensitive topic. So they continued their drive all the way to New Jersey, where they would find out information about S.H.I.E.L.D. from a dead man named Dr. Armin Zola. Information that revealed the parasite which grew its heads inside of the very division they worked for was the same one Steve thought he killed—that HYDRA was not dead, but instead living directly inside of S.H.I.E.L.D—and it took three seconds after finding that out for Steve's heart to fall to its death.
Because that meant she was in the center of where that parasite expanded its jaws and killed those that were not their own.
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
Author's Note:
Dun, dun, dun.
The Winter Soldier is stressful as heck to write for, but I'm so excited for the ending scene of the movie that I'm just breezing through with ease. I hope you guys enjoyed the glimpse into Steve's side during this chapter. It didn't feel right to completely leave those scenes out, especially when they were tied in so well with Lizzie. He was wearing her clothes as a disguise, my heart (I've had the idea of the hoodie Steve wears being Lizzie's since this story started).
Please let me know what you think so far. Any red flags being raised? Any fears as we go forward? Lizzie is officially in the lion's den of HYDRA and SHIELD. What do you think is going to happen?
As always, let me know how you liked this chapter! Your feedback and support has helped me keep up the momentum of this story, and I truly appreciate it
Happy Pride month!
Be safe. Speak love and spread love. Please sign these petitions: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co