The Soulmate Initiative: Book 1

9. Does anyone want to get out?

LOCATION: SHIELD HQ

Alexander Pierce greet Stacey outside his office "Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce." The pair shake hands "Sir, it's an honor." "The honor's mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in." Stacey follows the Secretary into his office, where he shows Stacey a photograph of him and Fury, both a bit younger "That photo was taken five years after Nora and I met, when I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nora was Deputy Chief of the SHIELD station there. And she comes to me with a plan, she wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said 'No, we'll negotiate.' Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement and what did they find? They find an empty room. Nora had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorised Military operation on foreign soil and saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter." "So you gave her a promotion." "I've never had any cause to regret it. Captain, what was Nora doing on your level of the Avengers Tower last night?" "I don't know." 

After a moment of silence, Pierce touches a remote and a screen pops up on the wall "I want you to see something." It's video footage showing the man Stacey had fought on the ship to save the SHIELD hostages, an interrogator asks "Who hired you, Batroc?" Stacey asks "Is that live?" "Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers." "Are you saying he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line." "No, no. It's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by email and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through 17 fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech." Pierce hands Stacey a file to look at as they continue talking "Am I supposed to know who that is?" "Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nora, her mother lived at 1437." Stacey gives Pierce a look of disbelief "Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?" "The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nora's death." "If you really know Nora Fury, you'd know that's not true." "Why do you think we're talking?"

"See, I took a seat in the Council not because I wanted to, but because Nora asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today-" He scoffs "-makes me really, really angry. Captain, you were the last person to see Nora alive, I don't think that's an accident. And I don't think you do, either." Stacey keeps her nerve "So, I'm gonna ask again. Why was she there?" "She told me not to trust anyone." "I wonder if that included her." "I'm sorry. Those were her last words. Excuse me." Stacey heads for the door, grabbing her shield on the way and strapping it onto her back "Captain." Stacey turns "Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it." He gives her a stern look "Anyone." Stacey gives a stiff nod "Understood." 

Stacey leaves Pierce's office and gets into the empty elevator "Operations control." The computer beeps "Confirmed." But right before the doors can close, Rumlow keeps them open "Keep all STRIKE personnel on sight." Two Agents walking in with him nod "Understood." "Yes, Sir." "Forensics." The computer beeps "Confirmed." "Captain." They nod to each other "Rumlow." The doors finally close "Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac team ready?" Stacey shakes her head "No, let's wait and see what it is first." "Right." Stacey notices one of the Agents has his hand on the gun in his holster and he looks a bit nervous. The elevator stops and the doors open, revealing four Agents in suits, metal briefcases in hand "What's the status so far?" "Administrations level." The computer beeps "Confirmed." More Agents walk in behind the four and one has to get cosier with Stacey "Excuse me."  By the time the doors close, it's pretty packed in the elevator. Rumlow talks to Stacey again "I'm sorry about what happened with Fury. It's messed up, what happened to her." "Thank you." Stacey takes a good look at the various types of Agents around her, one of them in a suit is sweating St the forehead.

The doors open yet again to reveal three more Agents, more of Rumlow's STRIKE team, they're very big beefy men. They walk in and Stacey realises something is about to go down and she is literally right in the middle of it "Records." The computer beeps "Confirmed." Stacey glances around at everyone as the doors close, she notices everyone has stopped talking to each other, she breaks the silence "Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?" One of the large men, standing right in front of her, responds by pulling out an electric rod and turning on Stacey. And the fight begins…

Stacey knocks the rod away and is grabbed by many different hands, she hits the emergency stop on the elevator controls, causing them all to jolt. They manage to get her shield away from her and one of the big men has his arm wrapped around her neck, trying to hold her in place. Those with the briefcases rip the handles off, they are magnetic cuffs. The group work on getting Stacey's hands up against the metal walls with them, the magnets are strong, but Stacey is stronger. She kicks and punches Agents away, one of the metal cuffs hits a wall, the other is clasped around her wrist. She headbutts the man behind her and manages to get out of his hold, but then gets swung at and leans backwards to avoid the electric rod, her cuffed wrist hitting the wall and sticking there. Rumlow comes at her with an electric rod and she has to fight him one handed, he electrocutes her until she is able to throw him backwards. 

The fight in the elevator is being watched by Agent Sitwell, who talks into his radio "Mobilise STRIKE units, 25th floor." Most of the Agents are unconscious, Stacey is clearly winning. She manages to get one Agent to electrocute another, then kicks them both in the head by jumping and doing the splits mid air. She kicks the next Agent that comes at her, then throws her feet up on the wall behind her, just below the magnetic cuff and uses all her strength to pull it off the wall. After quite the effort, she manages and somersaults backwards to avoid a swing by two Agents, she elbows one in the face and punches the other. Once he's down too, Rumlow gets back up, an electric rod in each hand "Whoa, sweetheart. I just want you to know, Captain, this isn't personal!" He whacks at her with one of the rods, but Stacey ducks and he hits the glass window behind her. Stacey throws a punch, but Rumlow manages to block it and electrocutes her, the same then happens again, but Stacey knocks the rods from his hands and throws him up at the ceiling, shattering the glass and then falling to the ground, unconscious like the rest of the Agents. Finally Stacey gets to catch her breath "It kind of feels personal."

She kicks her shield up, catching it in her hand and breaks the magnetic cuff off her wrist. She taps the elevator controls, to get the elevator doors open, but on the other side many armed Agents are poised, guns at the ready to shoot. Stacey's eyes widen and one speaks "Drop the shield and put your hands in the air!" Stacey quickly spins and slices her shield through the cables holding the elevator up, she plummets. But then it lurches to a stop, not at the bottom and not on a floor either. When the elevator doors open there are two doors behind them, going to different floors, they are both half visible to her and both closed. She pries the top one open, but sees armed Agents running down the corridor, so she forces the doors closed again. She looks out of the glass wall, looking down. Below her is a lower part to the building, with a glass roof. Out in the corridor she can hear "Give it up, Rogers! Get that door open. You have nowhere to go!" She's thinking 'Oh, I got somewhere to go, alright'. She backs up and runs at the glass wall, holding her shield up in front of her, shattering it. She falls to the roof below her, curling herself into a ball on her shield mid fall, then she crashes through the ceiling, landing on her shield, startling everyone below. She groans in pain, but forces herself up. Then she runs. 

Back up in SHIELD, Sitwell watches "Are you kidding me!? She's headed for the garage. Lock down the bridge." Stacey gets to her motorbike and quickly brings it to life, she roars out, having to get her motorbike in the air for a moment as the bulkhead doors try to shut her in, she barely makes it through the gap. She rides away, but spikes come out of the ground halfway down the bridge and a quinjet sours over her head, turning to face her a little ahead of her "Stand down, Captain Rogers. Stand down." A compartment under the quinjet opens and a gun pops out "Repeat, stand down." But Stacey speeds up, swerving from side to side to avoid the bullets. She then throws her shield at the quinjet, taking out one of its engines. When her bike gets close enough, she jumps up onto the quinjet and rips her shield out of the engine, jumping through the hole and destroying the wings on the back of the quinjet. Then she jumps with her shield and lands on the ground as the quinjet spins wildly, then crashes onto the bridge. She runs to her bike and continues to ride away.