agent rogers • j. thompson

ivy.

my house of stone, your ivy grows
and now i'm covered in you

—
CHARLOTTE ROGERS

"Are you okay?" Peggy asked us.

Jarvis spoke up first. "I'm fine... Unfortunately Mr. Brannis broke my fall."

"I'm alright." I mumbled. My right arm had a large bloodied scratch, but it was nothing permanent.

The Nitromene truck blew up in the lake and sucked the whole thing into a ball. Peggy limped over to Mr. Brannis and begged him to tell us who Leviathan was. She reached into his pocket to get the device that allowed him to talk, but it surfaced in pieces.

The last thing he did before completely dying was draw a heart with a squiggly line through it.

"M- Mr. Brannis? What does that mean?" I asked, but he was gone. Honestly, I felt kind of bad for the man.

We erased the picture and went back to Stark's house.

I couldn't watch Jarvis stitch up Peggy's knee. It gave me goosebumps.

I watched the ceiling instead as they spoke.

He had convinced her to allow her friends to be close to her and for Peggy to move to the Griffith by Angie.

"I'm proud of you, Peg," I expressed sincerely before the three of us parted ways for the night.

I figured Peggy spent that night looking up the symbol Brannis left.

I, however, only got a couple hours of sleep. I couldn't handle sitting in bed anymore, so I snuck into work at nearly 3:30am. I hoped I would be able to sneak into the lab and start my investigation.

I noticed that the doors were unlocked, and there were subtle signs that someone was in there.

I picked up a gun from the empty operator desk and I tiptoed around the corner.

I heard some papers ruffling, but they abruptly stopped. Footsteps sounded closer and closer until they halted.

My heart beat loudly in my chest and my back was pressed against the wall. I slowly leaned over to peep around the dark corner.

I suddenly jumped around the corner and pointed that gun I picked up blindly in the dark. I hoped it was just an SSR Agent, so I didn't shoot.

Opposite me, some guy was pointing their gun at me.

Luckily, the moonlight from outside allowed us to see each other. It was only Jack.

We both relaxed and lowered our guns.

"What the hell are you doing?" He asked, exasperated.

"I can ask you the same damn thing!"

"It's 3am!"

"Oh good! You can tell time!"

"Go home. I have work to do."

"I'm staying right here," I asserted firmly.

"God, you're so stubborn!"

"Am not!" I pouted. "You know what? I'm not going to stand here and argue about it — I have work to do!" I shuffled past him toward my desk, but like a pesky bug he followed me.

"Oh, like what?!"

"It's nothing you have to be concerned about, dear," I smiled mockingly.

"What are you doing here at nearly four in the morning?" He asked again calmly.

"My job." I answered blandly. "I'm always here early."

"Never this early. What has you up?"

"Why do you care?"

"Just answer it, please."

"Please? Oh my god, the great interrogator said please."

"Charlotte." He said firmly.

"I couldn't sleep," I sighed. "I don't know why I keep getting so sick..."

"It's getting worse?"

"It's fine. I'm fine." I lied.

"No you aren't."

"I said I'm fine." I advanced toward my desk only to be stopped short by a firm grip on my arm.

"Don't lie." He says, barely above a whisper.

"Let go!"

His grip on my arm released, but he held uncomfortably intense eye contact with me.

"Since when do you care, Jack?"

"It's not like I want to care," he mumbled.

"Excuse me?"

"That came out wrong — I just mean that... you," he paused. He looked up at the ceiling, then down at me again. "I have tried so hard not to care so deeply for you, but you just keep drawing me in. Even you being so sick after that shot is keeping me up at night."

"You have a funny way of showing you care," I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest. "If you really cared, you'd tell me what was in the shot."

"Look, I told you that I don't know."

"Just because you tell me something doesn't mean it's true," I said pointedly.

"You're impossible, Charlotte."

"And you're insufferable."