Unravel

Finding evidence linked to the Winter Soldier proved to be harder than Elizabeth had initially thought. She had a list of murders probably committed by him in every part of New York, DC and several other cities and towns on the east coast, pictures, even the files of some of the (now dead) Hydra-goons. But nothing. She just wasn’t able to pin him down. It didn’t help that Donovan kept being a nosy little bastard.

The biggest problem was that, apart from one or two witnesses, there was no evidence that these murders had actually been committed by the Winter Soldier. There were no fingerprints, no hair, nothing but bodies. Sometimes deaths couldn’t even be ruled as a murder since the men died through cyanide poisoning. Therefore they had to file it under suicide. But Elizabeth wouldn’t let him get away with it. So she started digging deeper and deeper.

Some places that she had suspected to be his hide-outs she had already been to without any luck. All she ever found were food packaging, at least indicating that there had actually been someone there at some point. Although from food packaging alone she couldn’t determine whether it was the Winter Soldier or just some homeless people or runaways. But she kept trying as well as working more hours than she usually did, even though other aspects of her so called social life suffered. She had felt so terribly sorry for denying Vito one of his early morning runs that she had gone and bought new toys. But she kept going to work earlier anyway.

This morning she had been at work even earlier and even though she tried to make herself seem less suspicious, her desk was overflowing with files she wasn’t supposed to have an interest in. Her colleagues were slowly but surely arriving at work, too, so there wasn’t that much privacy in her cubicle either.

One of the newly arriving agents was Donovan, coffee in hand and bleary-eyed. When he saw Elizabeth already up and working, he stopped in his tracks and rubbed his eyes. “This has got to be one hell of a hallucination.”

“Very funny, Ewan,” she retorted, keeping her eyes on her work.

“Julia! Matt! Get over here and tell me I’m dreaming.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes in annoyance but only a few seconds later two more colleagues were standing next to Ewan, peering into her cubicle with curious and startled expressions on their faces.

“I don’t believe I have ever seen you this eager at-,” Matt looked at his watch,” eight in the morning, holy shit.”

“Is she sick?” Julia asked Ewan.

“I have no idea, guys, something’s definitely wrong,” Ewan concluded, rubbing his forehead.

Elizabeth kept listening but didn’t answer to any of their assumptions. She knew this was unusual but not so extremely unusual that they had to make a scene like this. It was true - she was never the first one in the office, and it was also true she could be sour. But not always. At least she didn’t think this was how she usually came across.

“Liz,” Julia tried and waited for a huh? from Elizabeth to continue, “Did something happen we don’t know about yet? Is there a promotion available we don’t know about yet? Did you meet someone that made you feel all giddy and motivated to work?”

At that Elizabeth froze and sat up straighter. “What?” she asked, turning around on her chair with a look of pure and utter confusion on her face, maybe even a hint of disgust. “Why in God’s name would you think that? Do I look like I have time for that?”

“It’s was just a question,” Julia tried to defend herself but even Ewan and Matt chuckled. “Something must have happened.”

“The only things that happened were two bodies and a threat,” Elizabeth muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” Matt asked.

“Nothing,” Elizabeth warded off and turned back to the files strewn across her desk. “Don’t you guys have work to do or did Hawk send you to harass me?”

Julia and Matt looked taken aback but started moving back towards their own cubicles, leaving only Ewan to watch as Elizabeth searched through the files.

“Why do you always have to be such an ass?” he asked her with a hint of desperation. “And don’t you dare dodge this with your daddy-issues stories.”

“I don’t have daddy issues Ewan, that is something you fabricated yourself,” she answered with no hint of emotion and with her nose still deep in the files.

“Yeah, sure I did,” he muttered and entered the adjacent cubicle to take a seat.

Elizabeth knew that Ewan was a friend as far as friends went for her, or even relationships, really. But she couldn’t for the life of her be one of these fuzzy-feelings type of women. She had always been a competitive person, striving on victory and not on personal relationships. Even though she knew those two were not mutually exclusive they seemed to be for her.

“I just…,” she heard Ewan sigh from beyond her cubicle. “Kid, you need to stop being so bitter all the time.”

Her eyebrows furrowed as she didn’t know how to respond. That was how people perceived her? She knew she came off as harsh. But bitter?

“And you need to stop looking for the Soldier. Nothing good is going to come of it.”

“I know, it’s just… let me do this,” she pleaded. “For myself.”

She didn’t know how much she actually did it for herself. It was more of a mixture of revenge and retribution. But that was something she wouldn’t ever admit.