Liar

Folding her arms across her stomach, Kennedy leaned back against the metal of the elevator silently. Her blue eyes peered out from between the strands of her side-swept bangs. Her back of her neck felt significantly cooler after she’d cut most of her hair off just a few days ago. The pixie cut was easier to manage than her long hair had been.

She felt on edge being on the Helicarrier. Part of it was because she was running a high risk of being caught. Part of it was because she’d left Loki in her apartment with Ghost. Both reasons already had her nerves shot to hell and it was only nine in the morning.

Shifting slightly, Kennedy pressed off the wall as the elevator doors opened. Outside the door was a dark-haired woman dressed in what looked like the regulation S.H.I.E.L.D. outfit. A gash on her forehead was slightly hidden beneath her a section of her bangs. Her bright blue eyes glanced over Kennedy once before she nodded.

“So far, you’re the only who’s arrived on time,” was all she said before turning and walking away.

Kennedy’s eyebrows rose slightly but she said nothing as she followed after the woman. Her arms hung loosely at her sides, relaxed, while her blue eyes glanced around the Helicarrier. Her brief stay here hadn’t given her much time to take everything in. For now, she had fairly good opportunity to take a few things in.

“Do you always dress in so many layers?” the agent called over her shoulder.

“I’m cold-natured,” Kennedy replied with a slight shrug. “I’d rather be a little warm over being cool.”

It wasn’t entirely the truth or entirely a lie. Kennedy didn’t like to be cold but she didn’t like to be too hot either. She’d dressed in a jacket, long-sleeve shirt and a t-shirt to help hide the bulk of her bandages. She’d kept her ribs taped for the past three days. Three days of rest had helped a lot but she wasn’t at one hundred percent just yet.

“You were in a car wreck three days ago, weren’t you?”

“Unfortunately,” was Kennedy’s reply.

The cut on her forehead itched from her hair lying on it but there wasn’t much she could do about it. It had required three stitches while the cut on her back had needed thirteen. Kennedy was hoping that she wouldn’t need to do too much more than walk today, despite knowing that was unlikely. She didn’t want to risk a stitch being torn or to strain her tender ribs.

“And you were promoted to field agent three years ago by Agent…Coulson…”

Kennedy’s brow rose slightly before furrowing. She didn’t really understand why the woman had trailed off but there was a reason for it. The tone of her voice alone told Kennedy that it was out of sadness over something else. Interesting.

“Something wrong?” Kennedy asked.

“When was your last check in with Agent Coulson, Agent Anderson?”

“A month ago,” Kennedy replied. “I received a message two days ago that I could wait until today to meet with him.”

“You haven’t heard then?”

“Heard what?” she frowned.

“Agent Coulson was killed four days ago,” she replied, turning to look at Kennedy.

Kennedy blinked, her brow furrowing slightly. On one hand, she wouldn’t have to deal with Coulson not recognizing her. At the moment, she couldn’t come up with a downside to his death. Right now, she had to manage to look concerned, confused, and slightly upset at her handler’s death but not too upset.

“I didn’t…no one informed me. I hadn’t heard,” Kennedy murmured, brow furrowing.

“Until a new handler for you can be found, you have been temporarily transferred to the Helicarrier,” the agent continued after a moment had passed. “I understand that you have an apartment and a dog in New York?”

“Yes ma’am,” Kennedy nodded.

If she was transferred to the Helicarrier, that meant that she wouldn’t be in her apartment. She wouldn’t be able to take care of Ghost. She would have to leave Loki on his own for longer than she had intended. That was extremely problematic.

Before either could say anything, the agent’s hand lifted to her ear piece. Kennedy shifted, looking around as someone spoke into the agent’s ear. Her arms rose, folding across her stomach as she waited until the woman spoke to her again.

“The Director would like to meet with you.”

Fuck.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kennedy felt like she hadn’t taken a breath since she’d stepped on the Helicarrier until she was on the Quinjet some forty-five minutes later. She inhaled deeply and let it out as a sigh though it made her ribs throb. The bandages wrapped around her ribcage kept her from breathing in too deeply though.

She’d made it past Fury; which didn’t necessarily mean that he hadn’t seen right through her and was using her to find Loki. Right now, Kennedy couldn’t care less. She was just mostly relieved that she’d gotten through and had gotten her assignment. Fury had decided that she could brief herself on her assignment which was fine with her.

Her blue eyes dropped to the glass screen on her lap, the file containing information on her assignment waiting on her. For a moment she just looked at it before deciding to open it. As long as she wasn’t stuck being a desk jockey, she was fine. She doubted it would be anything serious or important though.

“Son of a bitch,” Kennedy muttered softly when she opened the file to see Steve’s face. “How fucking cliché do things get? I mean really. I could have predicted this with a magic eight ball.”

Sighing, she leaned back in her seat and began scrolling through his file. It was extensive. It was detailed. It was orderly maintained. Slightly impressive but not too impressive to Kennedy. The details weren’t in depth discussions of the battles but more of the situations that culminated in the battles. At times, things were just black and white statements that got straight to the point without the bull latched on.

To be honest, she felt for the guy at times. Losing his best friend was the only thing that she could really find some common ground with him on though. To her knowledge, she’d never spent time in a natural cryogenic state only to wake up seventy years later to find everyone she knew and cared for dead. She doubted that anyone else in the world had ever gone through that.

There wasn’t anything that he could really do about it besides get up and keep on going. Stiffen up the upper lip and carry on. He couldn’t really leave and go back to the 1940s. He couldn’t exactly leave anyways. Well, besides the obvious.

Kennedy couldn’t imagine what it was like for him. One day he’s in, what, 1945 and the next he’s in 2012? Seventy years have passed in the blink of an eye. He still looks twenty-three but he’s ninety years old now. So far he knows very little about the culture he’s in. Values and morals have changed since then but not everyone was a Rosie the Riveter or good ole boy back then either.

From the notes Fury had supplied at the end of the file, Kennedy assumed that she’d been assigned as Steve’s handler for now. And partially as someone to integrate him into society. Great. It sounded boring enough.

She turned off the screen before disassembling it and sliding it into her bag as the Quinjet prepared to land. Once it had landed, she shouldered the bag and walked down the ramp. Her blue eyes squinted shut briefly until she could adjust to the sunlight over New York City. She wished that the stormy weather would come back. It had been pleasant.

Kennedy took a S.H.I.E.L.D. car into the city until she was close enough to Steve’s location. She should have figured that he’d be at his apartment. It made her job a lot easier, actually. The thought that he was in his apartment on a fairly nice day like this did make her curious. There was plenty that he could be doing.

As she walked along the sidewalk, Kennedy pulled her phone out and dialed the phone in her apartment. This was a cheap burn phone that she could toss whenever she needed to. And it was the only phone that she was using to stay in contact with Loki.

The phone rang three times before going to the message. Rolling her eyes, Kennedy glanced up at the apartment building to check to make sure it was the right one before she went back to waiting for the beep to leave a message business.

“I know you’re there, okay? So just pick up the phone and press the talk button the next time I call, alright? And don’t destroy anything,” Kennedy muttered into the speaker before hanging up.

Slipping the phone back into her bag, Kennedy turned and followed a couple inside of the apartment building. Her better judgment told her to take the elevator but she took the stairs. It was a nice building and the elevator would have been much more convenient to take. To each his own, however.

By the time she reached Steve’s floor three floors later, her ribs were beginning to grate on her pain levels. It wasn’t that she had over-exerted herself in climbing the stairs. It was more along the lines that she’d tried to jog up the second flight. That had failed miserably.

Leaning against the wall of the stairwell, Kennedy pressed a hand to her ribs and closed her eyes. She breathed in shallowly, careful not to let her ribcage expand too far. The layers of bandages managed to restrict the expanding of her ribs enough but it still hurt to breathe. Grinding her teeth together, she opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

She stood there for five minutes before pushing away from the wall. Her hand swiped over the light, shaggy chunk of her bangs so that they hung right over her face. Just because she may have gotten past Fury, she still wasn’t so sure about that, didn’t mean that the same with Steve. But she was a little less nervous about everything right now.

Her knuckles rapped on the door, blue eyes glancing around the hall of the apartment building. A woman came out of the apartment two doors down with a toddler in hand. Kennedy watched them from the corner of her eyes, until they’d passed her and stepped inside of the elevator. A moment later she heard feet approaching the other side of Steve’s door.

Kennedy’s gaze flicked up to the eyehole in the middle of the door before glancing back down as the door opened. Steve’s blue gaze was unreadable as he looked at her. She’d almost forgotten how tall, and muscular, he was.

“Captain?” Kennedy asked, one eyebrow quirking upwards.

“Agent?” Steve returned with much the same look.

“Anderson.”

“Rogers.”

Steve stepped out of the way of the door to let Kennedy slide inside. She walked in, blue eyes adjusting to the lighting in the apartment. After a moment, she began to take everything in. It was a nice apartment, even if sparsely furnished. Parts of it looked like it had come out of the 40s or 50s. The fridge was a model that didn’t belong to a time within the last twenty years, maybe thirty.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt something,” Kennedy said as she turned to look at Steve.

“It’s fine, ma’am,” was his reply as he walked through to the living room. “Does the Director need something?”

“You and I both know that if the Director needed something, he would be here and I wouldn’t,” Kennedy answered only slightly dryly. She followed him into the living room of his apartment.

“That’s true but I’m still not sure as to why you’re here,” Steve said.

“You want the bull or the truth?” Kennedy asked as she looked at him.

“I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“Officially, I’m here as your handler. Unofficially, I’m here to smooth the process of integrating into our wonderful, modern society,” she shrugged while sitting on the couch opposite Steve.

“So you’re my babysitter in the most base sense of the world,” Steve said flatly.

“Fortunately or unfortunately,” Kennedy replied, “your choice.”

“Which means you know ‘everything’ about me.”

“I know what S.H.I.E.L.D. decided I need to know, yes,” Kennedy nodded. “And that is tantamount to me knowing what their psych evaluations, personality tests, et cetera have to say. So, no, I don’t know everything about you. What I do know is the generic information available to anyone who has the chance to read your file.”

Steve nodded slowly, his brow furrowing slightly in thought. Kennedy watched him silently, her hands resting on her knees as she sat up straight on the couch. The metal of her gun was somehow still cool against the skin of her back. The ticking sound of the second hand of a clock was beginning to grate on her nerves.

“What would you prefer that I call you, Agent Anderson?” Steve finally asked.

“Kylie,” she replied. “And you, Captain Rogers?”

“Steve.”