Unravel

Talking to the Winter Soldier had made her more than paranoid. She had tried not to let it get to her but by noon she was convinced that she was driving herself crazy. Every agent and even her director seemed suspicious to her. She knew the possibility of everyone being Hydra except for her was slim to none but it had still crossed her mind at least once.

After her lunch break was over she settled back into her cubicle and forced herself to focus on the work that had been assigned to her and not the file that had been hidden beside the many files on her desk. But it was still hard not to think of who might have assigned that work to her.

Taking a deep breath she started to work on it anyway. But after a few hours of work her attention was diverted by a commotion a few cubicles down. She stood up and looked over her own cubicle into Ewan’s, who had stood up, too, to get a better look at whatever was happening.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

“Don’t know,” he answered with a shrug and a frown on his face.

But her co-worker Julia appeared with a grim look on her face and Elizabeth thought that whatever had happened wasn’t grounds for celebration.

“Hawk wants to speak to you,” she told Elizabeth in a low tone that made her freeze. Talks with the director weren’t uncommon. But he was a sociable man and usually came out of his office to talk to the agents. If he was sending someone, he wanted her to come to his office and she had never heard of something good happening there before.

“Do you know why?” Elizabeth tried. If Julia could at least tell her a little bit more, she might not feel like she was on deathrow.

“Sorry, no clue,” Julia told her with a shrug and something akin to pity in her eyes. “But he seemed pissed, if that’s what you want to know,” she told her before she left her to her own thoughts of what might have happened.

“Shit,” she sighed but immediately straightened herself. If her brother had taught her anything then it was that she should never go down without a fight.

“You are such a drama queen,” she heard Ewan mumble, who was still leaning on her cubicle wall, watching her closely.

“Well, since I don’t know what I did this might as well be my funeral,” she told him but didn’t wait for his reply. Taking another deep breath she headed off towards the director’s office, where she knocked and waited for a reply.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked with a quiet voice when she opened the door.

Director Hawk was sitting behind his desk that would usually seem way too pompous for their office. But right now it only seemed big, bossy and threatening.

He looked her over for a while, not saying anything, until he grabbed something from the book shelf behind him and threw it carelessly onto the desk.

The minute Elizabeth saw what it was she sucked in air and her eyes widened. Shit. Grabbing the doorknob behind her she closed the door.

“I want an explanation.” Of course he did.

“I-,” Elizabeth started and swallowed hard. How was she going to start to explain herself? She couldn’t quite tell him why she had an extra copy of the Winter Soldier’s file just for her. Something she wasn’t even supposed to have access to. “I wanted to help.”

“And what makes you think that you are more capable of handling this case than the 5 agents with 30 years of experience currently working on it?”

Well, she wasn’t. She knew that. But she also knew that she had most likely been the only agent to have had personal contact with the Soldier. But that was something she probably shouldn’t let anyone know in this building.

When she didn’t answer Director Hawk continued.

“I’m sure you know that you have more leeway than the regular agent,” he told her and just that sentence made her pinch her nose. She didn’t want more leeway. “But this would usually result in suspension.”

How had he even gotten ahold of the file? She knew, she hadn’t put a lot of thought into hiding it properly but someone still would have had to explicitly search for it. Someone had ratted her out but as far as she knew no one except for Marc knew. She tried not to let her realisation show.
She feared that the Soldier had been right about the FBI being infiltrated. But why would they want to stop any investigation concerning the Winter Soldier? As far as she knew they wanted to know where he was hiding as bad as any intelligence agency.

“If it weren’t for your father, you would be facing at least two months of suspension,” Director Hawk’s statement made her snap back into reality.

“With all due respect, if that is the usual consequence then I’ll take it.” Elizabeth tried not to seem ticked off but just the mention of her father had that effect on her.

“That won’t be necessary,” he told her with a shake of his head and grabbed the file off the table before standing up and heading towards the file shredder behind him. “I don’t want you in any sort of trouble. As would your father and grandfather,” he continued and the file ended up being shredded to bits. So much to her personal investigation. That file had been her last copy.
Director Hawk looked at her with a smirk he tried to hide before shaking his head lightly, and sighed. “You’re free to go,” he told her, “but if there is a next time - which I hope won’t be the case - I will not be able to let you off this easily.”

Well, she hadn’t asked to be let off easily but Elizabeth knew better than to argue. So she nodded and made her way back to her cubicle, fighting the urge to call up her father. She was 28 years old and he still managed to make her feel like a 5 year old without having had any contact with him during the last 5 years.

When she reached her desk, she saw that Ewan was already packing up and ready to leave but she still wanted to know what the commotion before had been about.

“Already leaving?” she asked which he just answered with a solemn nod. “What was everyone so excited about?”

“Apparently someone was able to sneak a picture of Furiosa here,” he told her with a chuckle and Elizabeth resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
Pictures were always good, no matter the case but her partner’s reaction didn’t quite match the commotion beforehand. “Here,” he pulled up the picture on his computer.

“Why are you not excited about that?” Elizabeth asked curiously, gauging his reaction carefully.

“We’ve been looking for him for over a year and a half and now, suddenly, we have a picture. Can’t help but think it’s been done on purpose,” he confessed and shouldered his bag. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I think they want us to check out some leads on that whole drug ring business in lower Manhattan.”

“Okay.. Thanks,” she told him absentmindedly. The picture that had been pulled up on his computer had attracted her attention. “That’s really him?” she asked Ewan.

“Yeah, as far as we know,” he told her. “They’ve been running facial recognition on it for the past hour without success.”

As far as she knew that search would stay without success. Facial recognition records only went back as far as 70 years. And if her assumption of who the man on the picture was, was correct, then they would have no luck whatsoever. She couldn’t remember one single instance where she felt like this but she had to admit it: This was the first time she had ever been somewhat glad about her grandfather and father teling her all of these stories about World War II.