Unravel

Throughout the years she had spent living in the same house as her brother, she had been master-mind and victim of many, many pranks. Rural Oregon had been boring to two kids with a lot of free time and so they had found something to entertain themselves with, and sometimes others as well.
Of course, some things broke in the process (like her arm that one time her brother had manipulated the swing) , or pieces of clothing were torn (she wouldn’t go down without some sort of payback for her arm). But they never wanted a prank to purposely bring real harm to the other. It was all in good fun, just trying to scare or embarrass one another.
They had known their boundaries, even as kids.

Therefore she had found it hard to believe that an adult didn’t know theirs. However, if working for the FBI had shown her even one thing, it was that a lot of people’s boundaries were as good as non-existent.

At least, she was reminded of that yet again as she stared down at the file she had found on her desk or more so in her desk, wedged between files and files of things that she actually had access to.

At first, she was confused. Then shock had taken over, followed closely by a fit of internal rage that lasted close up to 10 minutes. Right now, helplessness had taken over.

Hastily rummaging through her desk’s drawers, she hoped to find no more extra files. She knew that she hadn’t put it there, having never even worked on this case before. She didn’t even know of this case. A high profile politician being the main suspect of the murder of an underage girl? This couldn’t even be public knowledge yet, news stations would be all over it by now. And somehow it had still found its way into one of her drawers.

Sliding the drawer shut, she put her head in her hands and took a deep breath. When she had started working for the FBI, she had thought that her days would mainly consist of chasing down criminals. She hadn’t thought about the tons and tons of paperwork that involved and she definitely hadn’t been prepared for someone trying to frame her.

Someone was trying to frame her.

The realisation hit her like a ton of bricks and she leaned back for a moment to absorb it all. But she knew she couldn’t wait too long, she had to get rid of it, somehow.

She could use her own file shredder but if someone really was trying to frame her they’d have agents look all over her cubicle including the remains of the files in her shredder. So, not an option.

Elizabeth kept on racking her brain but came to the same conclusion, over and over, and she hated it. Her need for self-preservation had always been strong but maybe this idea would take it one step too far. However, as far as she knew, she already was on thin ice.

There were a lot of things to consider: her fellow agents, her boss, security guards. She knew she had to move fast, taking everything into the equation was near impossible. So she did the next best thing that came to her mind, trying to seem as inconspicuous as possible.

Willing herself to move, she stood up and looked across the rows and rows of cubicles to find an empty one. When she spotted one a few rows down, she took a deep breath, grabbed the file as well as several others and steadily moved towards the abandoned cubicle.

Her heart kept thumping steadily, albeit hard, in her chest and everything around her seemed to slow down, making what she was about to do just that much more unbearable.

The moment she entered the empty cubicle, everything sped up again. She had the file shredded in no time but she couldn’t quite believe that that was it. If someone looked all over the office for the file or what was left of it, she would be to blame for what would happen to one of her co-workers.
Trying to shake of those fileS, she thought of something else that made her feel just as uneasy: Getting rid of the file had been somewhat relieving to her (not taking into account the enormous amount of guilt she was starting to feel) but it had been too easy, she thought.

Until she heard loud voices from the other side of the office.

Moving swiftly towards her own cubicle again, the other files tucked tightly against her chest, she already had her suspicions about what was happening - although she hoped with every fiber in her body that she was wrong. However, as soon as she saw Director Hawk with several agents in tow heading directly for her cubicle, her heart sank.

“Director,” she started, “What seems to be the problem?” She tried to put on her best fake smile to mask the uncertainty and anxiety she was feeling.

“Moore, with me,” he curtly replied. “Search every nook and cranny,” he instructed the several agents littering her cubicle before turning and steadily heading for his own office, not sparing Elizabeth even one glance.

Trying to keep her breathing under control, she followed. She had been prepared for several things today, maybe even for Barnes to steal her leftovers from yesterday’s chinese takeout, but hardly this.

Softly closing his office door behind her, she willed herself to keep her face blank and surprised.

Director Hawk didn’t speak up immediately but took a few seconds to seemingly gather himself before he started. And start he did.

“We have received information that you, Agent Moore, have been gathering and transferring data and intel to hitherto unknown institutions, possibly including, but not limited to, our most favourite Nazi organisation Hydra. This has been the second accusation within a month, Agent. A one-time false alarm might blow over but now we are bound to take this serious.
Agents have been instructed to search your cubicle. You have been made aware of the consequences, should we find evidence to support this statement, when you signed your contract.”

Elizabeth didn’t know with what to start with.

What? might have been unprofessional.

What in God’s fucking name is going on? Yeah, that one was her favourite for obvious reasons.

“Excuse me?” She finally decided. “How… What? I didn’t do anything prohibited, these accusations are definitely not based on any real evidence!” The desperation was clear in the frantic way she was trying to defend herself but the director didn’t acknowledge her in any way. Instead he continued.

“Since we don’t have any evidence yet to support the accusation,” he acknowledged, “we cannot arrest you. Therefore we will have to suspend you until further notice, until it is clear whether it actually was a false accusation or valid.” He looked at her briefly before turning around. “You are dismissed,” Leaving his office, he left her standing, mouth gaping and hands shaking.

She didn’t know what to do then. Not wanting to seem too eager to leave, she slowly shuffled back towards her cubicle - not that the state of shock and disbelief she was in allowed her to do anything else.

But once there she tried to get to her purse. When the agents sifting through her cubicle refused, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath and replied as defeated as possible. “Look, at least give me my phone, money and keys. Otherwise I won’t leave as I won’t have anywhere else to stay.”

////

Whatever she had expected of a simply Wednesday, it hadn’t been this. Most of the adrenalin and shock had worn off and she simply felt like laying in bed and crying. But first she still had to make it back to her apartment.

Leaving the field office had been strenuous enough by itself, the questioning looks and the worried and appalled looks from Ewan.

But she had walked out of there as soon as she had gotten her phone and keys back. They had kept her bag with all of the rest in it, meaning she had no gun, no pepper spray, no badge or even gum. They had even taken her freaking gum.

Taking a deep breath, she kept on walking. There wasn’t that much else she could do at the moment and mulling over it again and again probably didn’t help her. It would make her feel even worse but there weren’t too many things she could think of to make this day even worse.

She didn’t even make it as far as the nearest subway station when she was pulled into a dark alleyway by two strong hands.

However, her hope of it being someone she knew rapidly disappeared, when she felt the man putting her into a headlock as well as the hard nuzzle of a gun being shoved into her lower back. She momentarily froze, all of the air sucked out of her, but as soon as she felt the air rush back into her lungs, she belted out a scream as loud as she could.

The man struggled to keep her in the headlock but managed to slap his hand over her mouth, successfully muffling her scream.

“Shut up,” he hissed into her ear and pressed the gun harder into her back. “Listen kid, you’ve got something we want. You can give it to me and walk away free or it’ll be ugly.”

Elizabeth stopped screaming and yelped at the feeling of the gun being shoved even harder against her back.

“I want your file on the Winter Soldier. We’ve been told you’ve done your own bit of research.”

She struggled against his hand on her mouth, but when he finally took his hand away a bitter grin graced her face. “I don’t have it anymore,” she spat at him.

“Where is it?”

“Probably incinerated and now in a dumpster somewhere in New York, good luck finding it.”

“Stop bullshitting me.” His grip tightened and she gasped for air.

“I’m not! B- The Winter Soldier - he found it and stole it. I don’t have it anymore,” she struggled to speak but her confession made his grip slacken just the tiniest bit, insecurity and confusion showing.

“Wha-,” he started but she had already used his inattention to dive out of the headlock, turning around and thrusting her knee into his abdomen, sending him tumbling backwards. She used the momentum to yank the gun out of his hand and flung it into the dumpster at the back of the alley. Better no gun at all than losing it to him again and getting shot.

Whoever had sent him, they hadn’t sent their strongest man, and she was kind of glad as he came back charging towards her in anger.

Preparing for his attack, she reached out towards his head and tried to grab his neck. However, the next thing she knew, she was on her back, lying on the ground, her head throbbing and her ears ringing from the impact, with his hands around her own neck.

“Told you it’d be ugly.”

Elizabeth clawed at his hands and gasped for air until black dots started to form in her field of vision. If her need for self-preservation hadn’t set in before, it definitely did then.

Letting go of his hands, she pulled back her right arm and sent it flying towards his face, shoving her palm as hard as she could against his nose. There was a sickening crunch as it gave way to the pressure and he finally let go to hold his nose. Rolling to the side to get him off of her, she immediately reversed their roles and pinned him to the ground.

But instead of choking him, she settled for three hard punches in the face, leaving him temporarily unconscious.

“Asshole,” Elizabeth seethed as a wave of nausea made her struggle to stand upright. She didn’t wait until all of the black dots from her field of vision had disappeared to leave the scene. There wasn’t enough time to waste. She probably hadn’t done enough damage to make his unconsciousness last for a while but enough to get her out of the situation right now.

Hobbling out of the alley, she moved as swiftly as possible. She didn’t want to go back to her apartment just yet. There was hardly a way that someone would find her apartment, her father had made sure of that out of sheer paranoia. But she had no other choice.

So she put her hood up, sticking to back alleys on her way back, trying to be as invisible as possible until it was dark outside again. She had somewhere to be and a deal to negotiate.