Chapter 24
Celia didn’t think this meeting could be going any worse. Okay, maybe if Fury had just come in and thrown her in a cage to take to Shield, that would be worse. But this was a close second. When he brought up finding her fake address, she panicked a little, but kept it together. Sure, it wasn’t a good look for her to be lying about where she lived on official documentation, but she rarely cared about legal repercussions for herself. Celia made her choices knowing that they might come back to bite her in the ass, but everything she did was worth it in the end.
When Fury mentioned tailing her and Steve to her real apartment, only Steve’s hand on her wrist kept her from jumping up and flipping out. She was so focused on the tasks she needed to accomplish, she didn’t even think to look for someone following them. But she doubted she would’ve spotted any tails if none of the team had either. It was one thing to keep an eye out for a vengeful ex or some local cops, but this was a government agency. It made her physically sick to think she had put Kathy or Deb in danger.
But when she saw the picture in the folder Fury slid over, Steve’s breakfast almost reappeared. Staring back at her was a face she hadn’t seen in years. Not since one of the worst nights of her life. A face that greeted her in her nightmares on occasion still, every time making her wake in a cold sweat. A face that could bring down everything she had ever worked for since she became Celia Burke.
“Do you know who this is?” Fury asked, questioning her directly for the first time since he started the meeting.
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“I assume since it says missing under his name that he isn’t in prison where he belongs,” Celia ground out, glaring at the photo on the table.
“Does the rest of the class get to know who this is?” Tony butted in, looking intrigued at the budding standoff.
“His name is Max Turner. He was accused of murder and aggravated assault, but the case was thrown out due to insufficient evidence,” Fury explained.
“Insufficient evidence my ass!” Celia seethed, forcing herself to breathe. “He was a cop and had friends in the courts. They got him off.”
“How do you know that?” Tony asked, looking skeptical.
“I was the aggravated assault.”
“Okay, so what does this guy have to do with anything?” Tony questioned, looking back at Fury.
“Two weeks after the case was thrown out, Max Turner disappeared without a trace, never to be heard from again. Know anything about that Ms. Burke?”
“Well, it’s not that hard to start a new life where no one knows you.”
“Without taking a single item from his house or penny from his bank account?”
“Sure.”
“Why would he do that, if he didn’t have any fear of repercussions for his actions?”
“I couldn’t tell you why a murderer does what he does.”
“You can’t? Are you sure? Because I think you killed him.”
Steve sucked in a sharp breath next to her, tightening his grip on her wrist where it had been sitting for a while. Celia vaguely wondered how easy it would be for him to crush her bones, thinking back to the picture of the shooter. His grasp was just this side of painful, but she didn’t try to pull away. Any accidental damage would heal. What wouldn’t heal was the team’s opinion of her, if they believed what Fury was saying.
“What evidence do you have to prove that?” Bruce asked, speaking for the first time since the meeting started.
“Enough to open a formal investigation if the right people are contacted,” Fury said, sliding more papers onto the table. “Add to that the fake address, the name change, and suspicious money transfers, I think it’s safe to say Ms. Burke has some explaining to do. Or should I say, Ms. Williams.”
Celia shrugged off Steve’s hand now, the thought of being touched at this point more than she could take. She wanted to run, leave this place behind and never look back, but she knew she couldn’t. Celia stood and paced a few steps away from the group, needing to compose herself before she blew up and made things worse.
“Director that’s-” Steve started.
“How’d you find out her real name? Did you hack the court records?” Tony asked, leafing through the new papers Fury presented. Pages of bank records were displayed to the team, with multiple large transfers to recently opened accounts.
“A name only gets you so far. You can’t change DNA,” Fury said, slapping down another folder. This one held a picture of her from high school, basic blue backdrop and her hair curled just so. To anyone else, she looked like a normal, happy teenager, but she knew better. Celia had been a liar for a long time.
“Where did you find this?” Steve asked quietly, closing the folder to cover the picture of her face.
“A private run database of missing persons. Seems as though Holly Williams disappeared the summer after she graduated high school and her parents have been looking for her ever since.”
“You didn’t-” Celia gasped, trying to compose herself. “Did you contact them?”
“Not yet. Convince me not to.”
“Director, I don’t understand what all this has to do with what happened in the elevator,” Steve interjected. “Celia has told us enough about herself that we felt comfortable enough to have her in the tower.”
“She told you all this?” Fury shot back, looking unconvinced.
“No, but none of us have clean backgrounds. What makes it okay for us to leave the past behind but not her?” Steve asked.
“You all have skills and capabilities that make it worth the risk. Tell me why she deserves it?” Fury demanded, staring down at Steve.
This was the moment she had been preparing for. The point of the whole planning meeting the night before. The thoughts swirling through her head since she woke up that first time and healed after leaving the tower. Telling her secret. Telling the head of Shield, surprise, meet your new problem. But after her whole life was laid out in front of the team, would Fury even believe it? Would he shoot her in the chest to make her prove it? If it worked, great. If it didn’t, one less thing to worry about.
She had been ready last night for this all to be out in the open, truly she had. If Shield was good enough for the team to work with them, they couldn’t be all bad. There might be a lot of questions and maybe some tests, but Celia would knuckle through it, because she knew that was what needed to be done and maybe it would help something in the long run. But having her past shoved in her face like this, taking away her choice to share it, her right to privacy, was devastating. Celia knew, deep down in a tiny corner of her brain, that this wasn’t personal. She let it go with Tony, because he was just trying to protect his team and did seem apologetic afterwards. But Fury, he was just so damn cocky about it. She understood Steve’s hesitance to say he trusted him the day before. Fury might be the person to make the hard decisions to do right by the world, but he had no qualms using and abusing someone to do it.
“Well, I can heal now,” Celia said quietly, walking back up to stand at the table. “What does that get me?”