Status: in progress and will be finished this year wohoo and will probably get a sequel
Unravel
IV
She hated to admit it but there was currently only one word to describe her and that was desperate. Completely and utterly desperate.
Apparently, with all of her private investigating, she had drawn more attention to herself than she had wanted to.She had tried to be as discreet as possible and discreet had never before been a word to describe any aspect of her. But now the guy handling all of the files, Matt or Miles (she couldn’t remember), who she had to go to for access to it, had for the first time ever refused to give the Winter Soldier’s file to her. Which meant that at least one person was suspicious of her and Director Hawk possibly knew of this, too.
To put it into words, there was more than just a small chance that she was completely screwed. But after a small argument with Matt or Manuel and defeat on her part, she had come up with a plan that she dearly hoped would work. Well, it was usually a go-to-plan in movies so it had to have at least some truth behind it.
So that was how she came to strut towards the file storage, in a dress she would normally never wear casually, an underwire poking her (because she chose on of her older bras to give her assets a little more… push) and lipstick that she hoped hadn’t stained her teeth yet. All in all, she felt totally ridiculous but she would be damned if she didn’t get what she wanted.
When she came to the door of the file storage she stopped, tried to take a deep breath and stepped into the room. As usual it smelled like old books and dust, the light of the neon lamps overhead tinged everything, all of the boxes and files in the large room, an awful color that she couldn’t quite name. But there in the middle of it all, surrounded by piles of files, her target sat. She tried to stand taller just a bit for good measure before strutting over to him. She felt ridiculous, really. The only hope she had was that it didn’t show as much as she thought.
“Matt,” she greeted, trying to make her voice sound husky.
“Marc,” he corrected in a bored voice, not looking up from his work.
“Right, sorry. Marc,” Elizabeth tried to correct herself but it was blatantly obvious how uncomfortable she was. “I was wondering if-”
“-If you could have file number 306-103,” he finished and finally looked at her with his eyebrows raised high. “I know why you’re here.”
“Well,” she continued but stopped. She was going to do this right. Getting ahold of a strand of her hair with her fingers, she jutted one hip out and started twirling her hair. “I know I’ve been a pain in the ass these past few weeks... but I really really need it.” She had come closer to his table, trailing her fingers on his desk. But Marc only shot her the same bored look he always did, with an additional hint of disbelief. So she had to step it up, regrettably. Looking into his eyes, her hand travelled towards his but his face didn’t move an inch, except for his mouth.
“Really?” he asked her, unimpressed.
Elizabeth withdrew her hand at once in frustration. Of course it wouldn’t work. Nothing ever worked the same way it did in the movies. But something else might.
“Okay, listen,” she started, getting on eye level. The truth, granted it wasn’t too revealing, was usually the best bet to get something. “This is important. I just need it once more, then I’ll never bother you again. I’m pretty sure I can find out where the Soldier is hiding. I actually planned on giving the information to the FBI anonymously but if you do this for me, I... I’ll let you have it.” And also bribery.
Marc looked away from her but didn’t continue working. She could see the muscles of his jaw moving and the rest of his body tensing, just for a moment, when he suddenly stood up and disappeared somewhere between the rows and rows of boxes and files on the racks.
Elizabeth sighed and closed her eyes. Well, at least she had tried. Admitting defeat, she turned around and walked towards the door to get back to work, when she heard Marc call after her.
“I thought you wanted the file?”
She spun around, looking at him in disbelief. “You’re giving it to me?”
He tapped with his fingers on the file and went to answer but hesitated. “I... Bring it back by 10 or the deal is off.”
That was when it struck her. “Wait, I can’t do this in an hour!”
“Well, then you will have to find a way, won’t you?” he answered. “I can’t give you more time. There are agents that actually need it.”
She quickly walked towards him and all but snatched it out of his hands.
“I’ll be back 5 before 10,” she promised and made her way back to her office. She already had a solution, if only that solution would have been legal. But it was the only way to get what she wanted or else it would have all been for nothing.
So she sneaked back to her cubicle and waited until the copy machine was not occupied anymore. Her office was usually so busy that this would have been impossible. But right then there was a slot that allowed her to go through with it.
So she jumped at the chance and started copying the file twice, all the while trying not to look all too suspicious.
////
No one had asked what she was doing, no one seemed to be suspicious of her. Marc had gotten the file back not 5 minutes but 10 before 10 o’clock. Everything had seemed to go according to her badly thought out plan except for a stupid remark by Ewan although that was hardly anything new. But now she was stuck with a file that she couldn’t really keep at her workspace. Well, not two of them. One she had already hidden somewhere between all of the files she actually had to work on. But she still needed to take one home with her, which was just as bad as everything else that she had done this day.
Her hand never left her bag as she walked home towards her apartment and she was sure that to other people it probably looked fine but she felt like it looked like she was trying to cover up that she had millions worth of stuff in her bag. Which, if she really thought about it, was kind of correct but thinking about it just made her more and more nervous and nauseous.
When she finally got to her apartment, she kicked off her shoes, threw her bag onto her kitchen table and headed straight towards her bedroom, where she flopped down onto the mattress. When she opened her eyes again, Vito was sitting before her and sniffing her face.
“Hi, dog,” she muttered and extended her arm lazily to pet Vito. She didn’t for the life of her know why she was suddenly so tired. It might have been the weather because it was freezing at the moment. It might have also been her conscience weighing her down because, on this day alone, she had done more grave and illegal things than she had done during all of her adolescence. Whatever it was, it made her more and more tired until she fell asleep, all the while petting Vito.
/////
She woke up with a start and sank back into her mattress with a sigh the moment she realized that it was only 4 o’clock in the morning. There was more time than usual for her work-out and Vito was already whining at the door, so she got dressed and headed for Central Park.
When she came back, she fed Vito, then jumped into the shower and got dressed. She couldn’t quite say that she was particularly well-rested but it had to do. She could catch up on sleep and her investigation at the same time during the weekend, now that she actually had the files with her.
When she jumped out of the shower, she realized that she had almost managed to run late, so she got dressed as quickly as possible before she sped into her kitchen to get something to eat as well as her bag that she had left there the night before.
But that was when she noticed that something was off. She was sure that she had left the file inside of her bag but now it was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes grew wide in realization at what might have happened. “Shit!”
Dropping to her knees, she looked beneath the table although even her very tired self already knew what had happened. “No, no, no, no, nononoo.”
She held her face in her hands until Vito’s cold nose poked her in her upper arm. She looked up at her dog and exhaled.
“You are the worst watchdog in the history of ever.”
////
She had taken the files home with her so she would appear less suspicious at work but now she was more distracted than ever. Scolding herself for not taking the Winter Soldier as seriously as she should have, she grabbed her coffee mug and promptly jumped when Ewan addressed her from behind her, causing her to spill it all over her desk.
“Wow, sorry,” he chuckled. “What’s up?”
Grabbing a few tissues to dab away at the puddle on her desk, she let out a bitter laugh. “Just a bad night, is all.”
“You’ve had an awful lot of those recently.”
She tried to ignore his jab at her with all her might but it was of no use. “Stop it, Ewan.”
“Just saying,” he told her, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Yeah, you’re always ‘just saying’,” she snapped. “I need to work. You probably should, too.”
Ewan had always been nosy but now that she was actually tangled up in this mostly illegal mess, she really couldn’t have him prying into it. Even if it pained her to be a bitch to him.
But she wouldn’t have to for much longer since she already had a plan. Again. She just needed to wait for the day to end and hope that it wouldn’t all backfire.
////
“Okay, breathe, you can do this.”
Elizabeth tried to persuade herself to go through with her plan. But the more she thought about it, the more flaws she found. The biggest problem was that the possible result of her admittedly bad plan still outweighed every flaw she found in it.
She had taken her second copy of the Winter Soldier’s file with her and made another copy, which she let promptly disappear in her bedroom. She wasn’t taking any chances anymore.
Surrounded by comfort food and (she wasn’t really proud of that one) a bottle of vodka, she sat on her living room floor with a notebook in front of her. She knew what she wanted to write but she didn’t know if she had the confidence to actually write it down and let life run its course.
She grabbed the bottle and took a generous sip before reaching for the pen lying next to her. Things might be different if she had just had the common sense to hide the file in the first place. But now it was too late and she was almost about to write a letter starting with “Dear Winter Soldier”. On top of that she started to feel the alcohol’s effect on her.
Taking another deep breath, she finally started writing.
I want to talk. Tomorrow, 10pm, here.
This would have to do.
Placing the note inside of the file, she placed it on her kitchen table, making it easy to spot it. She just really hoped it wouldn’t backfire. But he had broken into her place before and he had told her that he wouldn’t kill her. So if he hadn’t done it by now, and he’d had more chances for that than she wanted to remember, he wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t, she tried to reassure herself.
Apparently, with all of her private investigating, she had drawn more attention to herself than she had wanted to.She had tried to be as discreet as possible and discreet had never before been a word to describe any aspect of her. But now the guy handling all of the files, Matt or Miles (she couldn’t remember), who she had to go to for access to it, had for the first time ever refused to give the Winter Soldier’s file to her. Which meant that at least one person was suspicious of her and Director Hawk possibly knew of this, too.
To put it into words, there was more than just a small chance that she was completely screwed. But after a small argument with Matt or Manuel and defeat on her part, she had come up with a plan that she dearly hoped would work. Well, it was usually a go-to-plan in movies so it had to have at least some truth behind it.
So that was how she came to strut towards the file storage, in a dress she would normally never wear casually, an underwire poking her (because she chose on of her older bras to give her assets a little more… push) and lipstick that she hoped hadn’t stained her teeth yet. All in all, she felt totally ridiculous but she would be damned if she didn’t get what she wanted.
When she came to the door of the file storage she stopped, tried to take a deep breath and stepped into the room. As usual it smelled like old books and dust, the light of the neon lamps overhead tinged everything, all of the boxes and files in the large room, an awful color that she couldn’t quite name. But there in the middle of it all, surrounded by piles of files, her target sat. She tried to stand taller just a bit for good measure before strutting over to him. She felt ridiculous, really. The only hope she had was that it didn’t show as much as she thought.
“Matt,” she greeted, trying to make her voice sound husky.
“Marc,” he corrected in a bored voice, not looking up from his work.
“Right, sorry. Marc,” Elizabeth tried to correct herself but it was blatantly obvious how uncomfortable she was. “I was wondering if-”
“-If you could have file number 306-103,” he finished and finally looked at her with his eyebrows raised high. “I know why you’re here.”
“Well,” she continued but stopped. She was going to do this right. Getting ahold of a strand of her hair with her fingers, she jutted one hip out and started twirling her hair. “I know I’ve been a pain in the ass these past few weeks... but I really really need it.” She had come closer to his table, trailing her fingers on his desk. But Marc only shot her the same bored look he always did, with an additional hint of disbelief. So she had to step it up, regrettably. Looking into his eyes, her hand travelled towards his but his face didn’t move an inch, except for his mouth.
“Really?” he asked her, unimpressed.
Elizabeth withdrew her hand at once in frustration. Of course it wouldn’t work. Nothing ever worked the same way it did in the movies. But something else might.
“Okay, listen,” she started, getting on eye level. The truth, granted it wasn’t too revealing, was usually the best bet to get something. “This is important. I just need it once more, then I’ll never bother you again. I’m pretty sure I can find out where the Soldier is hiding. I actually planned on giving the information to the FBI anonymously but if you do this for me, I... I’ll let you have it.” And also bribery.
Marc looked away from her but didn’t continue working. She could see the muscles of his jaw moving and the rest of his body tensing, just for a moment, when he suddenly stood up and disappeared somewhere between the rows and rows of boxes and files on the racks.
Elizabeth sighed and closed her eyes. Well, at least she had tried. Admitting defeat, she turned around and walked towards the door to get back to work, when she heard Marc call after her.
“I thought you wanted the file?”
She spun around, looking at him in disbelief. “You’re giving it to me?”
He tapped with his fingers on the file and went to answer but hesitated. “I... Bring it back by 10 or the deal is off.”
That was when it struck her. “Wait, I can’t do this in an hour!”
“Well, then you will have to find a way, won’t you?” he answered. “I can’t give you more time. There are agents that actually need it.”
She quickly walked towards him and all but snatched it out of his hands.
“I’ll be back 5 before 10,” she promised and made her way back to her office. She already had a solution, if only that solution would have been legal. But it was the only way to get what she wanted or else it would have all been for nothing.
So she sneaked back to her cubicle and waited until the copy machine was not occupied anymore. Her office was usually so busy that this would have been impossible. But right then there was a slot that allowed her to go through with it.
So she jumped at the chance and started copying the file twice, all the while trying not to look all too suspicious.
////
No one had asked what she was doing, no one seemed to be suspicious of her. Marc had gotten the file back not 5 minutes but 10 before 10 o’clock. Everything had seemed to go according to her badly thought out plan except for a stupid remark by Ewan although that was hardly anything new. But now she was stuck with a file that she couldn’t really keep at her workspace. Well, not two of them. One she had already hidden somewhere between all of the files she actually had to work on. But she still needed to take one home with her, which was just as bad as everything else that she had done this day.
Her hand never left her bag as she walked home towards her apartment and she was sure that to other people it probably looked fine but she felt like it looked like she was trying to cover up that she had millions worth of stuff in her bag. Which, if she really thought about it, was kind of correct but thinking about it just made her more and more nervous and nauseous.
When she finally got to her apartment, she kicked off her shoes, threw her bag onto her kitchen table and headed straight towards her bedroom, where she flopped down onto the mattress. When she opened her eyes again, Vito was sitting before her and sniffing her face.
“Hi, dog,” she muttered and extended her arm lazily to pet Vito. She didn’t for the life of her know why she was suddenly so tired. It might have been the weather because it was freezing at the moment. It might have also been her conscience weighing her down because, on this day alone, she had done more grave and illegal things than she had done during all of her adolescence. Whatever it was, it made her more and more tired until she fell asleep, all the while petting Vito.
/////
She woke up with a start and sank back into her mattress with a sigh the moment she realized that it was only 4 o’clock in the morning. There was more time than usual for her work-out and Vito was already whining at the door, so she got dressed and headed for Central Park.
When she came back, she fed Vito, then jumped into the shower and got dressed. She couldn’t quite say that she was particularly well-rested but it had to do. She could catch up on sleep and her investigation at the same time during the weekend, now that she actually had the files with her.
When she jumped out of the shower, she realized that she had almost managed to run late, so she got dressed as quickly as possible before she sped into her kitchen to get something to eat as well as her bag that she had left there the night before.
But that was when she noticed that something was off. She was sure that she had left the file inside of her bag but now it was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes grew wide in realization at what might have happened. “Shit!”
Dropping to her knees, she looked beneath the table although even her very tired self already knew what had happened. “No, no, no, no, nononoo.”
She held her face in her hands until Vito’s cold nose poked her in her upper arm. She looked up at her dog and exhaled.
“You are the worst watchdog in the history of ever.”
////
She had taken the files home with her so she would appear less suspicious at work but now she was more distracted than ever. Scolding herself for not taking the Winter Soldier as seriously as she should have, she grabbed her coffee mug and promptly jumped when Ewan addressed her from behind her, causing her to spill it all over her desk.
“Wow, sorry,” he chuckled. “What’s up?”
Grabbing a few tissues to dab away at the puddle on her desk, she let out a bitter laugh. “Just a bad night, is all.”
“You’ve had an awful lot of those recently.”
She tried to ignore his jab at her with all her might but it was of no use. “Stop it, Ewan.”
“Just saying,” he told her, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Yeah, you’re always ‘just saying’,” she snapped. “I need to work. You probably should, too.”
Ewan had always been nosy but now that she was actually tangled up in this mostly illegal mess, she really couldn’t have him prying into it. Even if it pained her to be a bitch to him.
But she wouldn’t have to for much longer since she already had a plan. Again. She just needed to wait for the day to end and hope that it wouldn’t all backfire.
////
“Okay, breathe, you can do this.”
Elizabeth tried to persuade herself to go through with her plan. But the more she thought about it, the more flaws she found. The biggest problem was that the possible result of her admittedly bad plan still outweighed every flaw she found in it.
She had taken her second copy of the Winter Soldier’s file with her and made another copy, which she let promptly disappear in her bedroom. She wasn’t taking any chances anymore.
Surrounded by comfort food and (she wasn’t really proud of that one) a bottle of vodka, she sat on her living room floor with a notebook in front of her. She knew what she wanted to write but she didn’t know if she had the confidence to actually write it down and let life run its course.
She grabbed the bottle and took a generous sip before reaching for the pen lying next to her. Things might be different if she had just had the common sense to hide the file in the first place. But now it was too late and she was almost about to write a letter starting with “Dear Winter Soldier”. On top of that she started to feel the alcohol’s effect on her.
Taking another deep breath, she finally started writing.
I want to talk. Tomorrow, 10pm, here.
This would have to do.
Placing the note inside of the file, she placed it on her kitchen table, making it easy to spot it. She just really hoped it wouldn’t backfire. But he had broken into her place before and he had told her that he wouldn’t kill her. So if he hadn’t done it by now, and he’d had more chances for that than she wanted to remember, he wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t, she tried to reassure herself.
♠ ♠ ♠
this chapter has been giving me nightmares because I had to rewrite it 3 times to be somewhat satisfied with it. So please, appreciate this long ass chapter and let me know what you think of it.Thanks and enjoy!