Eternally Missed [ARCHIVED]

April 4, 2014

All of the noise had died down. Or his hearing was going; that was also a possibility, but he didn’t think so. He could hear the distant sirens and commotion down on the street. The burning in his chest was building slowly, spreading out from the two bullet holes in his chest. No burning in his back, just the prickling, needle-sharp pain of the shattered glass underneath him. That meant there were no exit wounds, but he knew just from the burning that his light ballistic vest had failed. A downward glance to assess the damage confirmed that he was bleeding more slowly than he should have been. That was either a good sign or a very, very bad one. He would be dead before any help arrived, he knew that. Then this whole thing really would be a waste.

April 14, 2012, 4:07AM

The phone. The phone was ringing. He groped around in the pitch-dark until his fingers closed around it, and lifted it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Secretary,” a panicked voice.

“Anderson. It’s the middle of the night.”

“I know, sir. But the call came in on Director Fury’s secure line an hour ago, and we only just finished the decryption. They found Captain Rogers’ body. He’s sending a team to extract it.”

Pierce sat up, rubbing his temples with thumb and forefinger. “Okay,” he said. “Where are they taking it?”

“The Guest House.”

“Shut it down. We need his blood, and we don’t know what effects Nick’s little science project might have on the serum.”

“How am I supposed to--”

“Call an emergency meeting of the council on my behalf, and send a team to the location to stall until I can get them onboard. I’ll be at the office in thirty minutes.”

Hurriedly, Pierce changed clothes, straightening his tie in the foyer on the way out the door.

“It has come to my attention,” Pierce began immediately as the holograms of Yen, Hawley, Singh, Rockwell, and Malick flashed to life, “that Fury has located the body of Captain Steve Rogers, and is currently making arrangements to have it transported to the Guest House. This can only mean that he intends to use the TAHITI protocol to revive Captain Rogers.”

Malick raised an eyebrow. “As long as he remains a viable test subject, I don’t see the harm.”

“The research on GH.325 is minimal at best,” said Pierce. “There’s every chance that it might render Rogers completely useless as a test subject. And even if he manages to come back unharmed, the neural rewriting could wipe out any intel he might have on the Tesseract and its applications. Every attempt at replicating the serum used in Project Rebirth has failed, but now we have a chance to secure the original formula.”

“Motion to order that blood, hair, and tissue samples be taken from the subject before enacting TAHITI protocol?” suggested Hawley.

“Actually,” Pierce cut in, “I consulted with a contact at the Alden Institute. His expert opinion is that an enhanced individual such as Rogers could be resuscitated by much less aggressive means. The Institute has all of the necessary equipment and expertise to revive Rogers without ruining his viability as either a test subject or source of intelligence, and my contact has complete access.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Rockwell. “I have reservations about turning over such an important project to a private company. If the public learns that we have Rogers-”

“The Alden Institute is an exclusive cryogenics firm. Their clients demand absolute discretion. Their security is better than SHIELD’s. But, of course, we’ll deploy STRIKE operatives for the duration of Rogers’ stay there. I move to order that Rogers be transported to the Alden Institute and placed in the care of Dr. Christopher Montgomery.”

“Motion seconded,” said Hawley. “With the stipulation that if Rogers isn’t revived within 48 hours of arrival, he be turned back over to SHIELD, and TAHITI protocol be attempted. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Pierce.

“All in favor?”

Singh and Yen said, “Aye.”

“All opposed?”

Rockwell and Malick remained silent, abstaining from the vote.

“The motion passes. Mr. Secretary, if you would, inform Fury and relevant project personnel. If there’s no other business…? I call this meeting to a close.”

As Hawley, Rockwell, Yen, and Singh’s holograms dissolved, Malick stayed on the line. “You know,” he began, “Rogers would make an excellent vessel. GH.325 could enhance that potential.”

Pierce suppressed an eyeroll with studied control. Malick’s faction of Hydra was particularly obsessed with the organization’s more occult roots, but Pierce would be damned if he was going to let nutjobs in tinfoil hats like Malick throw his perfect soldier through a wormhole as a ritual sacrifice.

“I realize that, Gideon, but you have to recognize the need for soldiers,” Pierce said. “None of our goals get realized without men, like Rogers, who can do the work. And there’ll be many more like him as long as we don’t act too rashly and ruin our chances. Trust me, once everything is ready, if Rogers is the best vessel we can provide, he’s all yours.”

Like hell, he is.

“That’s a fair point,” said Malick, seeming to consider it. “Just remember that I have as much claim to SHIELD’s research as you do.”

With that, Malick’s hologram vanished.

Pierce removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, sinking back into his chair. There was so much to be done, and even more that could go wrong. Not only did Nick have his own ideas about what to do with Rogers, Malick was sniffing around. And Malick wasn’t one to let something go. He would pretend to go along with Pierce’s plan, but if he saw an opening, he’d take it without a second thought. The Council had taken two hours on standby before everyone was ready, and every second of time lost at this point was nerve-racking.

Pressing the button for the intercom to his assistant, he said, “Is Rumlow in the building yet?”

“Yes, sir. He’s in a briefing.”

“Call him up to my office immediately. It’s urgent. And arrange a flight to New York. Takeoff in two hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

He released the intercom. It would take Rumlow at least five to ten minutes to excuse himself from the briefing and get to the office. Pierce picked up his phone.

“Call Montgomery,” he said.

Three rings.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“You have new client coming in.”

“Oh?”

“Leto.”

“Oh. Oh, wow...”

They had started discussing this project years ago, back when Nick had proposed the Avengers Initiative. There had been talk of finding Rogers and reviving him for the project. Pierce’s inner circle had developed a plan to intercept him if he was ever found, isolate and synthesize the serum from his blood, and then turn the man himself into a second Asset. Since the Asset’s codename had been “Zima” during his time with the Russians, it was Pierce’s suggestion that their new soldier be codenamed “Leto”, Russian for “Summer”.

“Malick wants him.”

“Well, that won’t do. I’ll beef up security. Should I wake up the Asset?”

“Not yet, he needs more time to recover from the Libya incident,” said Pierce. “But have the staff on hand if we need to. Get Wentzel if you can. He can see to the Asset while you work on Leto. I’ll send a STRIKE team to coordinate with your security, and more will be with Leto when he gets there. Get started.”

“Yes, sir.”

As soon as he disconnected the call, his assistant’s voice rang out from the intercom. “Sir, Agent Rumlow to see you.”

“Send him in.”

Within thirty seconds, Rumlow entered the office. He was wearing a suit, which meant he didn’t have a current field assignment.

“Sir.”

Pierce motioned for him to sit across from him at the desk and said, “Big escort and defense operation. I need you and twenty operatives, minimum, en route to Greenland as soon as possible.”

He nodded, seeming to work out the logistics in his head. “Who are we escorting?”

“A body, frozen in ice.”

Rumlow’s eyebrows shot up. He was one of the few, other than Pierce and Montgomery, who knew about the project. “You found Leto?”

“Well, Fury’s team found him. But we’ve gotten the Council’s order to take him to Alden. The timeframe’s tight. Forty-eight hours from arrival. And Malick’s got his eye on him, so we’ll need security at all points on the route and fully vetted operatives. Our men only. No less than five years under me, no connections to Malick. If you even get a hint of his supernatural mumbo-jumbo off of them, they’re out.”

“It’ll be rough,” Rumlow said, “but I can make it work. I’ll take my guys with me to the extraction point, and have Anderson double-check backgrounds on the rest before they get deployed along the route.”

“Can you spare a team to coordinate with Montgomery’s security at Alden?’

Rumlow bit his lip and looked off to the right, reassigning his men in his head. “Yeah,” he said. “I can make it work.”

“Good. That’ll be all.”